A 58-year-old Collinsville, Illinois, man, Kenneth Joseph Coombs, pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in Nepal. Court documents reveal that between August and September 2016, Coombs traveled to Nepal and sexually abused eight children at a hotel, utilizing force, payments, and involuntary intoxication to commit the acts. He also documented this abuse by taking photographs of the children, which were later recovered by law enforcement from his electronic devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coombs, who was already required to register as a sex offender due to a prior conviction in Missouri, was arrested by U.S. authorities in September 2025 upon his return to the United States and has remained in custody. He is now awaiting sentencing, which is scheduled for October 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case was announced by Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva, U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Ryan Presley. The investigation was led by the FBI Springfield Field Office with assistance from numerous domestic and international agencies, including the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal and the U.S. Embassy in Nepal. This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The story is reported by the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 58-year-old Collinsville, Illinois, man, Kenneth Joseph Coombs, pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in Nepal. Court documents reveal that between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"yes","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-diaspora"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}