New | Ex-missionary jailed for porn with Amazon tribal children

A former missionary who admitted taking pornographic photos of children while working with a tribe in the Amazon region of Brazil was sentenced on Tuesday to 58 years in a US prison.

Warren Scott Kennell, 45, pleaded guilty in September to two charges of producing child pornography between 2008 and 2011.

Chief District Judge Anne Conway noted at the sentencing that Kennell had abused his position of trust as a missionary, the US Attorney’s office in Tampa said in a statement.

Warren, who is from New Jersey, conceded that he had befriended children in the tribe and then sexually abused them while working on assignment for the New Tribes Mission of Sanford, Florida.

Investigators found 940 pornographic images on an external hard drive in his luggage when he was stopped and searched in May at the Orlando International Airport.

According to prosecutors, he identified himself in one of the images as the man performing a sex act on a prepubescent girl.

“Kennell represents the worst kind of criminal - one that preys on innocent children,” Shane Folden, deputy special agent in charge of the Tampa office of the Department of Homeland Security, said in the statement.