A retired Marine Corps captain from Ventura County has received a 210 year prison sentence for sexually abusing young girls in Cambodia.
Michael Joseph Pepe was originally arrested in Cambodia in 2006. The Oxnard man was returned to the United States, where he was convicted of abusing a number of young girls.
In 2018, his conviction was overturned. He was retried last year, and once again convicted. Eight of his victims testified in the trial.
Pepe has been in federal custody since 2007. The federal judge who passed down the 210 year sentence described the crimes as “monstrous.” He said there was no justification for a sentence which would ever allow Pepe to be released from prison.