Australian man Michael Quinn pleads guilty in US court over child sex charges
AN AUSTRALIAN rugby player will spend at least the next 10 years behind bars for travelling to the US where he hoped to have sex with a young boy.
AN AUSTRALIAN rugby player will spend at least the next 10 years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to child sex charges in the United States.
Michael Quinn, a member of the Melbourne Chargers rugby team and a Monash University-educated geneticist who worked at a leading Melbourne IVF clinic, travelled to the US to have sex with a boy aged only six-years-old.
The charge he pleaded guilty to — travelling to the US for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor — carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
A judge will have to agree to the 10- to 13-year jail sentence negotiated by Quinn’s lawyer and prosecutors, meaning the actual jail term could be higher.
He will be sentenced in Los Angeles on October 3.
The 16-page criminal complaint compiled by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer who posed as multiple paedophiles in a sting to capture Quinn is upsetting and terrifying to read.
The complaint details alleged online, Kik and Wickr instant messenger conversations the agent had with the tall, powerfully built Quinn.
“Real horny for a perv here mate,” Quinn allegedly wrote in one exchange.
Quinn, 33, was arrested on May 21 and charged with one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor and one count of travelling to the US for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor.
Authorities said he touched down at LAX on Qantas Flight 93 on May 19 with two friends and two other mates flew in the same day on a United Airlines flight.
They rented a home in the Hollywood Hills, perched above the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Chinese Theatre and other Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Strip tourist sites.
According to authorities, Quinn had been planning a sexual rendezvous with a six-year-old boy that he kept secret from his travelling companions.
Quinn believed he had been communicating with Los Angeles paedophiles, but it was the undercover ICE agent from the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations unit.
“In advance of his travel, Quinn arranged to meet with a small group of like-minded men in the Los Angeles area and go with them to a hotel where they would have sex with children,” ICE special agent Aaron McClellan wrote in the complaint.
“Quinn, who expressed preference for boys aged 5-10, agreed to pay $US250 an hour to be provided with a child he could sodomise, and suggested sharing a child with one of the other men.”
Quinn, without his Australian travelling companions’ knowledge, caught an Uber ride to a hotel in a Los Angeles beach area where three agents posing as paedophiles were waiting, authorities allege.
Quinn was allegedly told the paedophiles had organised a sex party with a six-year-old boy.
“Quinn said to me he was nervous and excited,” the agent, detailing the moments before Quinn thought a pimp would deliver the boy to the hotel room, wrote in the criminal complaint.
When an agent posing as the pimp arrived and Quinn handed over $US260 — $US10 more than agreed — he was arrested.
“Mr Quinn travelled to the United States to have sex with a young child,” said US Attorney Eileen M Decker in court.
“Fortunately, law enforcement was able to ensure that no child was put in harm’s way and that Mr Quinn would face severe consequences for his conduct.”
After the LA leg of his trip Quinn had planned to fly to Nashville, Tennessee, where the Melbourne Chargers were to play in the Bingham Cup, a rugby tournament honouring September 11 hero and pioneer of gay rugby clubs, Mark Bingham.