A former Marine Corps captain who authorities say traveled to Cambodia in 2005 to drug, rape and otherwise sexually abuse young girls was sentenced Monday to 210 years in federal prison.
Michael Joseph Pepe, 68, has been in federal custody since 2007 and was previously convicted on separate charges that were thrown out in 2018. He was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer, who called his actions "monstrous" and "horrific," according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Central District of California.
"What he did to those preteen girls ... was torture," Fischer said, adding that there was "no justification for a sentence that would ever allow (Pepe) to be released from prison."
