An Alaska businessman was convicted March 23 on two charges in a case centered on multiple trips to Cambodia, where he engaged in sexual activities with young girls and recorded them. Jason Jayavarman of Anchorage, owner and operator of Jason’s International Youth Hostel, was convicted by a federal jury on a single count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and a single count of attempted travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place.
Jayavarman was arrested in August of 2013, following an undercover investigation initiated by a “concerned citizen’s anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers,” according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Beginning in 2013, an undercover FBI investigator began acting as if he “and a couple of his friends wanted to travel to Cambodia” and asked “how to get a child in Cambodia and if he could arrange for a child to be delivered to him and his friends,” the Alaska Native News reported. During this time, the FBI investigator had several conversations with Jayavarman, in person and over the phone, about Jayavarman’s trips to Cambodia between 2009 and 2013. He and the investigator discussed Jayavarman’s engagement in sexual activities with girls as young as 12 years old, with each encounter recorded in video and still image format. He also gave the undercover investigator tips on how to transport illicit footage between Cambodia and Alaska.
Following his 2013 arrest, Jayavarman waived his Miranda rights and confessed to many sexual encounters with at least one young girl on his trips, defending his actions by stating “it is cultural” in Cambodia, according to court documents.
FBI agents were able to obtain a search warrant for Jayavarman’s residence where they found 14 SD cards, six computers and two cameras, as well as other storage device. The FBI also found “numerous homemade videos,” which corresponded with Jayavarman’s confessions before and after his arrest, KTVA TV reported. Further evidence supported claims by Jayavarman — prior to his arrest — that he planned another trip for Aug. 21, 2013.
Jayavarman, who has been in custody since his arrest, faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 60 years, and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.