10-Year Term Given Man for Abusing Girl, 3

The adopted son of a millionaire tobacco executive was sentenced Friday in Los Angeles federal court to 10 years in prison for bringing a 3-year-old girl from his native Ecuador to the United States for immoral purposes.

Luis Albert Gillespie, 35, was convicted in July on a federal grand jury indictment charging that he persuaded the girl’s impoverished family in Ecuador to let him take her “with the intent and purpose to induce, entice and compel” her “to give herself up to debauchery and to engage in immoral practices.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Joyce Karlin, who prosecuted the case, said the girl’s mother allowed Gillespie to take her daughter “for a better life.”

“But (the girl) was molested from the very first day she was brought to the United States,” Karlin said.

Operates Beauty Salon

Gillespie, who operates a beauty salon in Santa Monica, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon.

Gillespie’s adoptive father, David Gillespie, is listed in “Who’s Who in America” as the chief executive of Los Angeles-based Glaser Brothers and of Core Mark Import/Export Co. of Vancouver, Canada, both multibillion-dollar tobacco distributing and importing firms.

The indictment stemmed from an investigation by the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department’s sexually exploited child unit and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The girl was brought to the United States in early 1985 on a visa that indicated that her natural father was David Gillespie, evidence at the trial showed.

Luis Gillespie, also a native of Ecuador, knew the girl’s mother, who lived in a small village outside Quito, and was named the child’s godfather, evidence showed.

Testifies to Rape

Isabel Anderson, the Canadian nanny hired by David Gillespie to care for the child, testified that she walked into the child’s room at David Gillespie’s Hancock Park mansion on June 12, 1985, and found Luis Gillespie raping the girl.

Anderson was fired the next day and reported the crime after she returned to Canada. The girl was placed in a foster home by authorities.

A medical expert testified that the child had been sexually abused.

Defense attorney Harland W. Braun asked Kenyon for leniency, claiming that Luis Gillespie has been exposed to the AIDS virus.

After imposing the prison term, Kenyon refused to allow Gillespie to remain free on bail pending appeal and ordered him into custody. A notice of appeal was filed Friday in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.