Mark J. Newton and Peter Truong

Last updated
Mark J. Newton
NationalityAmerican
Known forSexual abuse of his adopted son
PartnerPeter Truong
Criminal penalty40 years in prison
Peter Truong
NationalityVietnamese-Australian
Known forSexual abuse of his adopted son
PartnerMark J. Newton
Criminal penalty30 years in prison

Mark J. Newton and Peter Truong are two convicted child sexual abusers arrested in Los Angeles in 2013. Truong, a Vietnamese-Australian, and Newton, from the United States, entered a civil partnership in Australia, adopted a boy from Russia in 2005 and paid his mother $8,000 for him. [1] [2] The pair groomed the boy for sexual abuse and flew him around the world for other men to abuse, having visited many countries by the time he was three years old. [2] Before their crime came to light, Newton and Truong were featured in several TV programs and magazine articles about LGBT families, including a notorious interview by Australian journalist Ginger Gorman in June 2010. [1]

The crime was accidentally revealed when police found videos of the child, identified by a distinctive henna tattoo on his chest, being abused by Newton, Truong, and others. [3] The two were also found to be part of an international pedophile ring. [4] In June 2013, Newton was sentenced to a 40-year prison time and in December, Truong was sentenced to 30 years, after having his sentence reduced 10 years for cooperating with the investigators. [2]

In 2013, Ginger Gorman published a follow-up on her earlier reporting about the couple. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat</span> Catholic ecclesiastical territory

The Diocese of Ballarat, based in Ballarat, Australia, is a diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Melbourne. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and was established in 1874. Its geography covers the west, Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria. The cathedral is in St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat.

Trinity Catholic College is an independent Roman Catholic co-educational secondary day school, located over two adjacent campuses in the Northern Rivers region, on the northern fringe of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle</span> Latin Catholic diocese in Australia

The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is a suffragan Latin Church diocese of the Archdiocese of Sydney, established in 1847 initially as the Diocese of Maitland and changed to the current name in 1995. The diocese covers the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales in Australia. The bishop of the diocese is Michael Kennedy

Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.

Gerald Francis Ridsdale is an Australian laicised Catholic priest and sex offender. He was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of a large number of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against 65 children aged as young as four years. The offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s while Ridsdale worked as a school chaplain at St Alipius Primary School, a boys' boarding school in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat.

The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved underage teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child in May 2012. This resulted in Greater Manchester Police launching Operation Doublet to investigate further claims of abuse with 19 men so far being convicted. Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the police investigation. The men were British Pakistanis, which led to discussion on whether the failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities' fear of being accused of racial prejudice. The girls were mainly White British.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.

The Elm Guest House was a hotel in Rocks Lane, near Barnes Common in southwest London. In a list produced by convicted fraudster Chris Fay, several prominent British men were alleged to have engaged in sexual abuse and child grooming at the Guest House in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Labour MP Tom Watson, having heard testimony from Carl Beech, suggested in an October 2012 statement to the House of Commons that a paedophile network which had existed at this time may have brought children to parties at the private residence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom</span> Overview about child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom

Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom has been reported in the country throughout its history. In about 90% of cases the abuser is a person known to the child. However, cases during the second half of the twentieth century, involving religious institutions, schools, popular entertainers, politicians, military personnel, and other officials, have been revealed and widely publicised since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Child sexual abuse rings in numerous towns and cities across the UK have also drawn considerable attention.

Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into the prevalence, causes and social implications.

Paul Pelham Righton, known as Peter Righton, was a child protection expert and social care worker, and a convicted child molester. In 2013, the Metropolitan Police launched Operation Cayacos to investigate claims that Righton was part of an establishment paedophile network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Scully</span> Australian sex offender (born 1963)

Peter Gerard Scully is an Australian sex offender imprisoned for life in the Philippines after being convicted of one count of human trafficking and five counts of rape by sexual assault of children. Scully was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2018. In November 2022, he received a second conviction and was sentenced to an additional 129 years in prison.

The Anglican Communion sexual abuse cases are a series of allegations, investigations, trials, and convictions of child sexual abuse crimes committed by clergy, members of religious orders and lay members of the Anglican Communion.

In 2010, police received a report of a child sex abuse ring in Norwich, England. The recurring crimes spanned 10 years and all victims, two boys and three girls, were younger than 13. The perpetrators organized sex parties where adults played card games to decide who would abuse which child. Three members of the gang received significant prison sentences, including ringleader Marie Black, who was jailed for life. Black's sentence made her "one of the UK's most notorious paedophiles."

Caro Meldrum-Hanna is an Australian investigative journalist.

Operation Voicer was a major police investigation into serious sexual offences against pre-school aged children and infants across England, launched in 2014. The perpetrators groomed the families of the young victims, in some cases before the babies were even born. By September 2015, seven offenders were jailed, 28 further suspects had been arrested, three victims were identified, and 33 children were safeguarded. Ten offenders received significant prison sentences.

Grace Tame is an Australian activist and advocate for survivors of sexual assault. Tame was named 2021 Australian of the Year on 25 January 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent Ryan (priest)</span> Australian Catholic priest (1938–2022)

Vincent Gerard Ryan was an Australian Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing 37 children. He was first charged in October 1995 and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. Ryan was the first Catholic priest in the Newcastle, New South Wales, region to be charged with child sexual abuse, and one of the first in the world to be convicted of such abuse.

Ginger Gorman is an Australian social justice journalist and author of the book Troll Hunting: inside the world of online hate and its human fallout (2019). She is based in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Gorman, Ginger (9 July 2013). "A journalist's second thoughts". ABC News . Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 Back, Alexandra (10 March 2014). "Paedophile Peter Truong says he 'misses his son'". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  3. Meldrum-Hanna, Caro; Masters, Deb (10 March 2014). "Boy with henna tattoo: How Australian Peter Truong groomed son to be exploited by global paedophile network". ABC News . Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  4. Meldrum-Hanna, Caro (2 July 2013). "Police vow to smash paedophile ring that abused boy trafficked by adoptive parents". ABC News . Retrieved 17 May 2021.