Sexual Tourist Verdict Is Due Today

A federal judge is expected to rule today whether an 86-year-old Garden Grove man is guilty of planning a sex tour to the Philippines to molest girls.

Addressing the court for the first time in his closing argument, John W. Seljan’s lawyer said Thursday that prosecutors did not sufficiently tie their evidence -- including sexually explicit letters and photographs -- to his client.

Even if Seljan did write the letters, attorney Allan H. Stokke said, no testimony was presented to prove that his client truly planned to have sex with the girls.

“Who knows whether or not these so-called love letters can be trusted?” he said. “Is it a fantasy he’s talking about?”

Seljan has been in custody since his arrest at Los Angeles International Airport in October 2003 as he was boarding a flight to the Philippines, carrying luggage that included sexual aids, copies of the letters and nearly 100 pounds of chocolate and pistachios.

Customs inspectors had intercepted the original letters from a Federal Express facility during a crackdown on exported U.S. currency, after noticing that they appeared to contain sexual language directed at girls.

“I’ll teach you the right way to make love so you can go to heaven,” read one letter, written to an 11-year-old girl prosecutors believe Seljan met on a previous trip.

To another girl, Seljan allegedly wrote, “Honey, for being only nine years old you write very plain English.”

When arrested at LAX, Seljan reportedly told customs agents he had been traveling to the Philippines for more than 20 years to “sexually educate” young girls with their mothers’ permission. In that country, he told them, sex with minors was legal, although Filipino law enforcement officers testified during his trial that it was not.

In addition to the candy and roughly $8,000 in cash -- nearly triple the average yearly salary for a government worker in the Philippines -- agents said they found a white envelope crammed with dozens of photos of Seljan and naked girls.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Lee said in court that before they had opened the envelope, Seljan had stood and said, “Those are my sexy pictures. Those are mine. They are not for you.”

The former cleaning products business owner is one of about a dozen people nationwide to be charged with sex tourism and the first to face trial on the charge. A law passed in 2003 gives U.S. law enforcement greater authority to pursue sexual predators across international borders.

If convicted, Seljan faces up to 30 years in prison for seven felony counts, including possession and production of child pornography and using an interstate facility to sexually entice a minor.

“The defendant is a sexual predator,” Lee told U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler in her Santa Ana courtroom. “He’s a sexual tourist.”

During the three-day trial, Seljan sat hunched in a blue-backed wheelchair wearing a plaid blazer and slacks. Headphones allowed him to hear the proceedings more clearly.

His attorney chose not to make an opening statement or call any witnesses. Stotler will decide the verdict because Seljan opted not to have a jury trial.

In his closing statement, Stokke urged Stotler to consider that the mothers of the Filipina girls apparently knew and approved of what went on between his client and their daughters.

“These people were writing to him,” Stokke said. “They clearly wanted him to come over.”