Brea Resident Arrested in Daughter’s Molestation

A 39-year-old man who fled Sri Lanka to escape punishment for molesting his 4-year-old daughter was arrested Thursday in Brea, authorities said.

Federal agents arrested international fugitive Devanike Aswinkumar Sinnatambi at his apartment and held him without bail at a Los Angeles detention center, said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Beginning in 2000, Sinnatambi was on trial in Sri Lanka on charges that he sexually assaulted his daughter, who was 4 at the time, but he fled to the U.S. on a tourist visa in December 2001, authorities said.

Kice said a Sri Lanka court in 2002 convicted and sentenced him to spend 36 years in prison in absentia.

“This was an egregious case,” Kice said. “The victim was violated in a very violent way.”

Authorities said Sinnatambi fled Sri Lanka with his second wife and another child. The second wife was not arrested.

Kice said immigration lawyers would ask a judge to deport Sinnatambi to Sri Lanka, where she said he will face the 36-year sentence without parole. A court hearing was not yet scheduled.

Authorities said Sinnatambi was a tea merchant in Sri Lanka and lived in Baltimore before settling in Orange County. He owns Fullerton-based Terrigena Inc., which produces herbal supplements.