Bay Area man who traveled to Cambodia for sex with minors sentenced

(04-11) 14:26 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A Bay Area man who pleaded guilty to having sex with an underage girl while in Cambodia was sentenced this week to 64 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution.

Michael Koklich, 49, who is also known as Michael Light, was indicted in 2006 on charges of violating a so-called sex tourism law, which makes it a crime to engage in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. Koklich, who lived part-time in Cambodia and in various Bay Area locations, was arrested in Phnom Penh in February 2006.

Koklich admitted to investigators that he had sexual relations with two girls, ages 11 and 13, according to court documents, and said he paid them $10 to $20 for each encounter. The claims were bolstered by interviews with the victims, prosecutors said in court documents.

He also told investigators that he had had sex with 40 to 50 underage girls in Cambodia over the course of three years, court records show.

Prosecutors also wrote in court documents that Koklich wrote letters to his adult Cambodian girlfriend after his arrest and asked her to pay off the victims and the families to discourage them from testifying against him.

Under an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office, Koklich pleaded guilty to one of two counts, and agreed to pay $5,000 to each victim.