When he was in Honduras working as a Pentagon contractor – years before he was sent to prison for stealing classified government secrets – Christopher Rennie Glenn recruited young girls from poor villages to work as his housekeepers, promising to give significant sums of money to their families.
He made the girls believe that their families had given him permission to marry them, and fake marriage ceremonies were performed, court records say.
Then, Glenn gave the girls pills that made them black out, and he had sex with them.
One of the victims was 16 when she met Glenn, who was about twice her age.
Another was just 14.
Glenn, now 37, was convicted Wednesday of several crimes, including sex trafficking and sexual assault of minors, after a month-long jury trial. His “elaborate scheme to sexually exploit” young girls unfolded over the course of several years, when Glenn was working as a computer network system administrator at Soto Cano Air Base, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Florida.
A government expert witness testified at Glenn’s trial in federal court in Florida that the pills confiscated from his home in Honduras “were determined to be drugs that can be used as sedatives and date rape drugs,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Glenn, who lived in West Palm Beach, Fla., is already in prison for stealing classified documents while he was working as a Pentagon contractor. He was arrested in 2014 on several charges, including violation of the Espionage Act. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2015 to a 10-year term of imprisonment.
According to the Justice Department, Glenn had “accessed a classified Department of Defense network without authorization and removed classified national defense information from Department of Defense and U.S. Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM’s) Joint Task Force-Bravo, including intelligence reports and military plans.”
He “proceeded to encrypt the files and place them on an Internet-accessible network storage device located in his residence in Honduras.” After Glenn’s sentencing, then-Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin said he had “exploited his position as a cleared military contractor” and “violated the unique trust placed in him by the Department of Defense.”
The U.S. government found that national-security crimes weren’t the only ones Glenn was committing while he was in Honduras.
Investigators conducting their probe into the theft of the classified documents also discovered that Glenn had exploited minors, according to a criminal complaint.
One victim told investigators that she met Glenn in 2012, when she was 16. An acquaintance, identified in the complaint as J.A., asked her parents whether she could work as a housekeeper. The girl was later taken to a house in Comayagua, Honduras, where she began doing chores.
A few days later, J.A. told the girl that her father had consented for her to marry Glenn, who was using the name Yusef.
After a fake marriage ceremony, which was performed by J.A., Glenn gave the girl pills – “vitamins” – to calm her nerves, the complaint says. She blacked out and woke up the next day in Glenn’s bed, confused and disoriented.
The girl told investigators that Glenn treated her well: She was given a home, food and ice cream. But she also said that she thought she was obliged to have sex with Glenn because she believed their marriage was real.
At times, Glenn gave her pills that she thought were for birth control.
That same year, the complaint says, Glenn and J.A. tried to recruit another girl.
They found a family that agreed to send their 20-year-old daughter to work for Glenn, according to the complaint. But he thought she was too old.
Later, Glenn and J.A. found a 14-year-old and promised to pay her family a significant amount in return, the complaint says.
They took her to Comayugua, where J.A. told the girl that her family had agreed for her to marry Glenn. She burst into tears after she was told that she would become Glenn’s wife, according to the complaint.
After the “marriage ceremony,” Glenn gave the teen pills that made her black out, and she woke up naked in his bed the next morning. She was later taken back to her parents because she was crying too much, the complaint says.
The first victim lived with Glenn until 2013. Over time, she believed she loved him, the girl told investigators.
Glenn also paid the girl’s parents a significant amount of money, which they used to make improvements to their home, such as building an extension and obtaining plumbing and electricity, the complaint says.
Prosecutors say Glenn had been sexually assaulting minors since at least 2002, when he began having sex with a 13-year-old girl from Mexico. The girl lived with Glenn in California until 2006.
Investigators also found child pornography at Glenn’s house in Honduras.
A jury convicted Glenn of several charges, including sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, sexual assault of a minor and possession of child pornography.
According to the Miami Herald:
“Glenn represented himself during the monthlong federal trial in Miami, after first firing his assistant federal public defender and then dismissing another defense attorney appointed by the judge. He even demanded a Spanish interpreter to translate the proceedings, although he was born and raised in New York and spoke fluent English during his prior espionage case.
“Attorney Joseph Rosenbaum, who gave the opening statement at Glenn’s trial before his client went back to representing himself, said he plans to help him on the appeal. ‘The jury worked long and hard during five days of deliberations,’ Rosenbaum said on Wednesday. ‘We will be working to appeal the outcome of this case.’ ”
Rosenbaum was not immediately available for comment Thursday.
Glenn faces a mandatory 15-year prison sentence – “and potentially up to life,” the Herald reported.
(c) 2017, The Washington Post
