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Press Release

Wisconsin Man Sentenced to 60 Months in Prison for Sexual Exploitation of a Minor in Belize

For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs

WASHINGTON – A Wisconsin man was sentenced today in Milwaukee to 60 months in prison for traveling to a foreign country and engaging in and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department's Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney James L. Santelle of the Eastern District of Wisconsin; John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and Scott Bultrowicz, Director of the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). 

Roland J. Flath, 72, of Fond du Lac, Wis., was sentenced in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Wisconsin by Judge J.P. Stadtmueller.  In addition to his prison term, Flath was sentenced to 10 years of supervised release.  Flath pleaded guilty before Judge Stadtmueller on May 19, 2012.

According to court documents, Flath traveled to Belize in July 2006, and subsequently sexually molested a minor girl from that country.  Flath was originally charged by a criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin in October 2010.  He was arrested by the Guatemalan National Civil Police on Feb. 20, 2011, expelled to the United States and arrested in the United States by ICE agents and the U.S. Marshals Service.  Flath was indicted on March 22, 2011, by a grand jury sitting in the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by U.S. Attorneys' offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Penelope Coblentz of the Eastern District of Wisconsin and Trial Attorney Mi Yung Park of CEOS.  Assistance was provided by the Office of International Affairs in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  This case is a result of investigative efforts led by ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Milwaukee and the DSS’s Regional Security Office in Belize, CEOS’s High Technology Investigative Unit, and the Belize Police Department.

Updated September 15, 2014

Press Release Number: 12-1087