A U.S. citizen formerly residing in Vietnam has been sentenced to 108 months in prison for molesting an 11-year-old Vietnamese boy in 2015, the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City confirmed in a press release on Monday.

Joseph Ricky Park, a.k.a. Joseph Demasi, received the prison term for attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct with the young boy during a trial in the U.S. on October 28.

He was also handed a lifetime of supervised release.

The case was previously prosecuted by the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in Washington, D.C..

In January 2015, Park invited three Vietnamese boys to his apartment under the guise of offering English language instruction.

He later initiated inappropriate sexual contact with one of the boys, who was 11 at the time.

The victim reported the abuse to police officers in Vietnam and later to the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) during a subsequent forensic interview at the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City.

In January 2016, Park was indicted by a U.S. federal court for engaging or attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place and was arrested in the following month.

He pleaded guilty in February 2021.

The court documents showed that Park has multiple prior convictions for offenses against minors.

“This case demonstrates that when U.S. and international law enforcement partners collaborate to investigate those seeking to exploit children, there is nowhere in the world criminals can go to escape justice,” said Chargé d’Affaires Marie Damour.

The HSI is a critical investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and plays a critical role in combating criminal organizations illegally exploiting America's travel, trade, financial, and immigration systems.

With over 200 domestic offices and more than 80 offices overseas, HSI has the ability to follow a case wherever in the world it may lead.

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