Pensacola man, who worked at NAS Pensacola, was sentenced on Friday to 6.5 years for taking trips to Thailand for sex with young boys. Mitchell Kent Jackson of Pensacola pleaded guilty in November 2008 to traveling to have sex with a minor and conspiracy to do so. His sentence may be reduced for helping the Feds prosecute the ringleader.
Jackson and his former Mobile roommate, Burgess Lee Burgess, operated a Web site from 1999 to 2001 called boyhoodparadise.com, according to court records. Through the Web, they met Wayne Nelson Corliss, a New Jersey actor who put them in touch with John Wrenshall, a Canadian teacher living in Thailand.
Burgess and Jackson paid for Corliss to travel several times to Thailand from 2000 to 2002, according to prosecutors.
According to the Mobile Press Register, Special Agent Christopher Anderson, a Mobile-based Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, testified Friday said Wrenshall told Burgess and Jackson that the parents were OK with “one-night stands” but hoped that the customers would “fall in love” and agree to become “sponsors.”
Under the sponsor arrangement, men would pay $400 toward the children’s schooling and get unfettered access to the child during each visit, according to court.
Neil Hanley, Jackson’s lawyer, argued for leniency based on his client’s exemplary life. Long before immigration officials began investigating, Hanley said, Jackson had stopped having sex with children and obtained a job at Naval Air Station Pensacola.
“After the trip in 2002, Mr. Jackson left that world — completely,” Hanley said. “This is not a jailhouse conversion.”
Wrenshall departed Thailand shortly after news broke of the guilty pleas in the Mobile case. British authorities arrested him in December at Heathrow Airport in London; he recently was extradited to the United States. He awaits trial in New Jersey.
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