Bendigo paedophile Joel Maltese jailed after pleading guilty to multiple child sex offences

A Bendigo Jehovah’s Witness who hypnotised child sex slaves was issued a Liam Neeson-style Taken threat by a victim’s dad.

A victim’s dad told Bendigo paedophile Joel Maltese that he would hunt him down like Liam Neeson in Taken.

An unemployed Bendigo IT student who degraded and abused multiple child sex slaves after claiming he hypnotised his victims via the internet has been jailed.

Joel Maltese, 27, was sentenced in the County Court on Wednesday to a minimum 12 months’ jail after pleading guilty to 12 charges including procuring a child for sex and engage in a sexual activity with a child outside Australia.

Maltese handed himself into police in January last year after telling an elder at his church he was addicted to child pornography.

The deprave sicko told police he taught himself how to hypnotise young children online into performing degrading and vile sexual acts.

The court was told Maltese spoke to his child victims, calling them his slave and him the master.

Maltese also instructed some victims to drink urine, go to school with a vibrator in and without undies.

The paedophile also talked to his victims about participating in sexual activity with their own future young children.

Many of the victims lived overseas including in the US, the UK and Germany.

Maltese estimated he had about 20 sex slaves, some as young as six years old, during the bulk of the offending which occurred between 2017 and 2018.

Maltese called one victim, a 12-year-old girl, his “slutty pre-teen sex toy slave”.

He asked the victim to perform vulgar acts with a ferret and “pee and poo”.

The victim’s father intercepted Maltese’s communication and threatened the sicko.

The father asked Maltese if he had seen the end of Taken – a Liam Neeson action film where a father murders the criminals who kidnapped his daughter

“If you ever talk to my daughter again I’ll personally hunt you down like the animal you are,” the father said.

Maltese sent another victim images of his penis and forced her to send him lewd images of herself.

He also instructed another victim, a girl believed to be aged between 6 and 8, how to masturbate.

Maltese recorded the victim who he referred to as his “princess”.

“You are my princess and I am your daddy, send me a pic of your undies on the inside,” Maltese said.

Investigators found various child abuse files on his computer and phone including a vile video of a baby being raped by a man.

Maltese, who the court heard was studying an online cyber security certificate, told police his goal was to “get off” or “jerk off”.

Maltese said he was attracted to girls his own age at school but his depraved sexual tendencies worsened as he got older.

“As I got older the girls didn’t get any older,” Maltese told police.

Maltese said he hunted for victims via Google Hangouts and used online aliases to mask his offending.

Judge Gavan Meredith acknowledged Maltese’s offending may not have been known without a confession as he was not being investigated by police at the time.

Maltese grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness and ran his own vending machine company after finishing school, the court heard.

Maltese, who also pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to groom a person believed to be under the age of 16 and transmitting child pornography, was made a registered sex offender.

His maximum sentence will be entered into the record at 2pm today.

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