MIAMI - An HIV-infected man who made and sold videos of himself having sex with children was sentenced Friday to 100 years in prison.
Angel Rafael Mariscal's crimes rank "at or near the bottom rung of human behavior," U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga said in sentencing him.
Altonaga heard Mariscal's trial without a jury. Prosecutors said he recorded sex acts with at least 120 children, some as young as 7, on trips to Cuba and Ecuador and distributed videotapes and CDs to at least 300 customers in the United States. Some paid as much as $975 for videos custom-made for them.
The Cuban and Ecuadorean governments aided in the investigation of Mariscal, 45, an Ecuadorean national arrested in Miami Beach, by tracking down some victims. Cuba also prosecuted three women and a man who helped recruit girls and boys for the pornographer. Typical victims were poor children, paid off with offers of a bicycle, clothing or small amounts of cash, the judge said.
Mariscal spoke at length as he asked for something short of a life sentence, saying he doesn't have long to live because he tested positive for HIV in 1994. He said he became a sex addict after coming to the United States in 1980 and blamed easy access to porn in New York's Times Square.
"I am not a freak of nature. I'm just an average guy," he said. "Addiction to pornography is not something society is willing to accept."
None of the 12 children who were tracked down tested positive for HIV in initial exams.
The investigation so far has resulted in 44 arrests of alleged customers of Mariscal, 26 convictions and three suicides. Defendants include police officers, teachers, a school custodian and a school bus driver.
