WASHINGTON – A former contract employee for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been arrested on charges of engaging in illicit sexual contact with a boy while working for USAID in Bangladesh, the Justice Department announced today.
William Newton Rudd, 64, who previously lived in Fullerton, Calif., was arrested upon his arrival at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday after being expelled from the African nation of Togo, where he most recently resided. Rudd is charged in a one-count indictment, returned by a federal Grand Jury on August 29, 2007, and unsealed today, with traveling in foreign commerce and engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. Rudd is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., later this afternoon.
Rudd worked as an advisor on a USAID-funded development project in Bangladesh. Authorities in Togo arrested Rudd on immigration violations on Friday, August 31, 2007, after his U.S. passport was revoked in the wake of his indictment.
According to the indictment, Rudd traveled from the United States to Bangladesh in 2003. The indictment alleges that while in Bangladesh, Rudd engaged in sexual contact with a Bangladeshi boy who was 10 or 11 years old at the time. The indictment states that the illicit sexual conduct took place from November 2003 through May 2004.
If convicted, Rudd faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.
The case is being prosecuted jointly by Trial Attorney Myesha Braden of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gannon of the Central District of California.
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