Interpol alert leads to child-abuse suspect in New Jersey
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
NEWARK, N. J. — A rare international alert seeking a man shown in dozens of raw child porn images led to the arrest of an actor, who painted faces at children’s parties and performed as “the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen.” Wayne Nelson Corliss told authorities he had sex with three boys in Thailand six years ago, a prosecutor said Thursday at Corliss’ first court appearance.
The arrest of Corliss, 58, at his Union City apartment late Wednesday capped a two-day global manhunt, the second time Interpol has sought the public’s help in tracking down a childabuse suspect. According to the international police agency, he is a suspect in the sexual abuse of at least three boys thought to have been 6 to 10 years old.
Corliss is charged with producing child pornography and could face 10 to 20 years in federal prison if convicted, according to the U. S. attorney’s office in Newark.
At Thursday’s hearing, assistant U. S. attorney Lee Vartan said Corliss told the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who arrested him that he had sex with three boys over three nights in Thailand in 2002.
Vartan also said agents found about 1, 000 images of child pornography on computer hard drives in the apartment. They also found several pairs of boys’ underwear, including one that Corliss told authorities he brought back from Thailand as a souvenir, the prosecutor said.
Corliss, who spoke only twice during the court appearance, said he was a comedy writer and a member of the Screen Actors Guild. He asked for a lawyer to be appointed to him but was not asked to enter a plea. He was being held without bail pending a hearing Monday.
A SAG spokesman said the union does not confirm who is or is not a member.
Neighbors and colleagues know Corliss, who acted under the stage name Casey Wayne, as a witty man who liked to write and eschewed 9-to-5 jobs in favor of acting and entertainment gigs — including painting faces and playing Santa Claus at parties.
Judy Stone, a neighbor who worked with him as an entertainer at corporate parties, art fairs and bar mitzvahs, said he did a wonderful job.
“He’s the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen,” Stone said. “I’ve never seen him act in a way that was creepy or predatory toward children.” Raven Squire, the superintendent of the apartment building where Corliss has lived for more than two decades, said Corliss was computer-savvy and had a cluttered apartment but that he never saw anything inappropriate there.
“He’s a very amiable man, a great sense of wittiness,” Squire said. “He seemed very stable, always paid his rent.” Corliss’ arrest came two days after Interpol took the rare step of asking for the public’s help. Two years of investigation had failed to determine the identity, whereabouts or even the nationality of a man shown engaged in sex with children in images associated with a Canadian child pornography investigation in 2005.
Interpol’s secretary-general, Ronald Noble, said 460 leads flooded in within the first 24 hours after the agency launched its public appeal Tuesday. Three of those leads, e-mailed to Interpol from people in the United States who thought they recognized the man but who requested anonymity, were particularly strong, and all referred to the suspect by the name Casey Wayne, Noble said.
It was only the second time that Interpol had launched such a public manhunt for a child-abuse suspect. The first time, in October, led to the arrest by police in Thailand of Christopher Paul Neil, a 32-year-old Canadian. Information for this article was contributed by John Leicester, Angela Doland, Beth DeFalco, Geoff Mulvihill, Sandy Cohen and Ted Shafrey of The Associated Press.
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