Wanted for years by the FBI for child abuse, an American was arrested near Strasbourg, where he lived, and charged and imprisoned in France for the rape of his 10-year-old adopted son, we learned on Friday, November 14 from a source close to the case.
An investigation is underway to verify whether the suspect, Michael Wiseman, 51, who was arrested on November 1 in Kilstett (Bas-Rhin) where he lived under a false identity, attacked his other child, aged 8, this source said. When questioned by AFP, the prosecutor only indicated this“investigative procedures are underway in Strasbourg”, without further precision.
According to police in Scottsdale, Arizona (southwestern United States), the man was first arrested in February 2008 for “sexual exploitation of minors”, but had fled the United States that same year when he was fitted with an electronic bracelet.
“His criminal activity and repeated attempts to evade arrest spanned nearly two decades in multiple countries, and have now come to an end.” welcomed American police officers in a press release posted on social networks.
Arrested in 2009 in Spain, the suspect was extradited to his country, then convicted in 2012, but fled abroad again while he was on parole. Passing through Vietnam then Poland, finally settling in France.
By remotely accessing the contents of his emails, American investigators discovered a video in which the fifty-year-old man raped his adopted daughter, which led to his indictment in France. “Without efforts to locate Wiseman for extradition, new evidence of his current crimes would never have been discovered.” Arizona police said.
According to information gathered in Kilstett, the fifty-year-old man and his family had lived for more than a year in the town located about 15 kilometers north of Strasbourg. His children go to school there.
There, with his wife whom he met in Vietnam, he founded an organic mushroom production company. Previously, according to his own account on his company’s website, he “private jet pilot in Europe” and lead a “English school”, since resale.
News of his arrest, and the facts he was accused of, spread on Friday among parents of elementary school students, Valérie, the mother of a little girl at CM2, told AFP. “It was a real panic for people close to him (…), we were shocked,” he commented.
