I did it – US sex pervert
Admits abusing girls at Greytown Aids home
AFORMER US Peace Corps volunteer is facing up to 30 years in prison for sexually abusing four young girls while serving at the Umvoti Aids Centre in Greytown.
Jesse Osmun, 32, pleaded guilty yesterday in a US District Court in Hartford, Connecticut, to travelling to engage in sex conduct with children. The victims were three to six years old.
He was caught on May 24 last year by a teacher at the shelter.
Also looming for the paedophile when he is sentenced on September 11 is restitution to his victims. Under court guidelines, he faces at least 14 years in jail.
“While serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Greytown, Osmun committed horrific, unforgivable crimes,” said Assistant AttorneyGeneral, Lanny Breuer.
“He was supposed to be helping young children in need, many of whom were orphans, but instead, he preyed upon them, sexually abusing several young girls under the age of six. He betrayed the Peace Corps and the children he had travelled to South Africa to help.”
Remorseful
His attorney, Richard Meehan jr, described Osmun as remorseful.
“He has been amazingly candid with respect to his conduct, which is obviously extremely distressing, and he’s never wavered from the fact that he visited these wrongs on the young children,” Meehan said.
Authorities say Osmun persuaded the children by playing games with them and providing them with sweets.
Osmun said he helped supervise children, was left alone with them for 10 to 30 minutes and saw this as an opportunity.
He said he touched one girl and masturbated in front of her. He said he did likewise with the other three girls. Osmun admitted that he did so with one of his victims twice a week for about five months.
“I fully accept responsibility for my actions,” he told the judge.
“The crimes of this former volunteer are reprehensible,” said Peace Corps director, Aaron Williams, yesterday.
“The Peace Corps has no tolerance for abuse of any kind, and our deepest sympathies are with all the victims involved.”
Williams praised the investigators, including the SAPS. He told of background checks on Peace Corps applicants.
“The Peace Corps is committed to ensuring that the children affected by these crimes receive proper care and treatment,” Williams said.
The Peace Corps traces its roots to 1960, when then Senator John Kennedy challenged Michigan university students to serve their
PUBLIC Protector Thuli Madonsela is assessing a request from businessman and anti-corruption lobbyist Hugh Glenister to investigate the steps taken by Parliament and the government to implement a Constitutional Court order requiring greater independence for the elite Hawks.
Madonsela’s spokeswoman, Kgalalelo Masibi, said yesterday that the public protector’s office had received Glenister’s request and the matter was “still being assessed”.
Glenister said yesterday that the redrafted SAPS Amendment Bill, accepted by the National Assembly on May 23, had not adequately addressed the concerns of the court about creating an effective anti-corruption body.
The bill, which is now before the National Council of Provinces for consideration, is aimed at restructuring the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, better known as the Hawks, in line with the Constitutional Court’s Glenister ruling.
It has generated heated debate, with the ANC claiming that it gives the unit sufficient independence as demanded by the court, but the opposition saying it is a minimalist attempt to appease the Bench.
A major concern of those opposing the bill is the decision to leave the unit in the police service.
Under this arrangement, the head of the unit will be ac- countable to the minister of police.
Glenister, who won a lone campaign last year to challenge the legislation that disbanded the Scorpions, has claimed, along with a number of organisations, that it would be “deadly” to put the Hawks into the SAPS as envisaged in the bill.
Parliament has until September 18 to remedy the legislation as per the court’s ruling.
In a letter dated June 22 and written by law firm MA Cooper on behalf of Glenister to Madonsela, which was copied to Lawrence Mushwana, chairman of the SA Human Rights Commission, and his deputy, Pregs Govender, Glenister called for a probe into the processes dealing with the bill.
Glenister said yesterday that despite inviting public commentary, the committee dealing with the bill seemed to have largely ignored the input of the submissions heard, of which only one was in favour of the bill. country by living and working in developing nations.
From this, its website says, grew a US government agency “devoted to world peace and friendship”.
The Peace Corps has sent more than 200 000 Americans to serve in 139 countries. About 150 are working in South Africa.
Osmun joined the corps in March 2010 and worked at an orphanage in Kenya. He started at the Umvoti Aids Centre in March 2011.
It has emerged that his dark activities included showing the children child pornography on his computer.
Pants
According to one investigator, a teacher saw him follow three girls into a building on May 24 last year.
The teacher followed, seeing Osmun with his back to her and one of the girls near him. He seemed startled and zipped up his pants.
Later, the child told the teacher of being asked to perform oral sex.
Two days later, the centre confronted and expelled Osmun. He flew out of South Africa on June 1 last year, and the Peace Corps was alerted on June 7.
On August 4, US investigators confronted him in Connecticut. – Sapa-AP, additional reporting by Daily News Reporter, Correspondents and Sapa.