California man sentenced for traveling to sexually abuse boys

MIAMI — A California man was sentenced Thursday to 34 years in federal prison and a lifetime of supervised release for traveling from the United States to the Dominican Republic to engage in illicit sexual conduct with minors. The sentence resulted from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Dominican National Police.

According to evidence presented at trial, Troy Douglas Brimm, 50, traveled to the Dominican Republic Oct. 20, 2009, where he sought out shoe-shine boys, offered them food and money, and performed sex acts with them.

Brimm has an extensive criminal history involving child exploitation. He has convictions that date back to 1991 for sodomy with a 16-year-old boy, receipt and distribution of material involving the sexual exploitation of minors, and performing lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old. He was already registered as a sex offender due to these prior convictions.

This investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide HSI initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders and child sex traffickers. HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-347-2423 or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-843-5678.

HSI is a founding member and current chair of the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international alliance of law enforcement agencies and private industry sector partners working together to prevent and deter online child sexual abuse.