By Dailymail. An American man who admitted to jetting off to the Dominican Republic to have sex with underage girls has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Theodore Symonds, 51, traveled to Puerto Plata in March to have sex with an at-the-time year-old girl and a year-old girl, according to the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida on Friday. Prostitution is legal in the Dominican Republic, but 60 percent of the 25, to 35, prostitutes in the country start out as minors, according to the International Labour Organization. Theodore Symonds, 51, traveled to Puerto Plata in March to have sex with an at-the-time year-old girl and a year-old girl.
The age of consent in the Dominican Republic is Many children find that they can get in a cycle of abuse as they work to make ends meet for their families, hoping to escape the waves of poverty that ravishes the nation. Court documents reveal that Symonds corresponded with the girls on Facebook, asking if he had ownership over the girls and demanding that they send him nude photos.
When clothes were seen in the photos, he stated 'No clothes, my God,' and required that the girls take off more of their clothes. The man also sent photos to the girls that featured past visits, including one where he and a victim were lying down while partially clothed. Symonds told American authorities that he would not have gone back to the Dominican Republic if he knew that he could get in trouble in the United States.
Messages between Symonds and a friend - only referred to as A. Symonds would go on and explain that the girl's age was no concern because he was friends with her family and the police. The year-old girl once asked Symonds to use protection when they next met up, prompting questions from the man and him informing her that he didn't want problems with his penis.
