THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) said the American sexagenarian in Bacolod City, who was arrested for allegedly uploading sex videos on a porn site, will not be deported to the United States as he is facing charges in the Philippines.
Lee David Colglazier, 62, has been charged by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for violation of the Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act before the City Prosecutor’s Office on Saturday a day after his arrest at his residence in Barangay Taculing.
The suspect is detained at the NBI-Bacolod office.
Immigration Officer II Mita Chuvy Arguelles said Monday, May 15 that a foreign national is not deported if he or she has a pending case since one of the requirements for deportation is a clearance from the court.
She said Colglazier’s visa will expire on June 5 this year after it was extended last month.
He is not blacklisted as he has no record of any crime, Arguelles said.
NBI-Bacolod head Renoir Baldovino said Monday they are still waiting for the forensic result before filing the anti-trafficking in person charges, which is a non-bailable offense, against the suspect.
He said they are still studying if the charges will be filed per act due to the number of explicit pictures and videos recovered from the suspect’s laptop and cellphone.
Colglazier, who has been traveling to the Philippines on a tourist visa, married a Filipina in 2014 after he met her in a dating site in 2009. They have a five-year-old son.
The American suspect told reporters in an interview Monday at the NBI-Bacolod office that he is not part of a cybercrime network.
“I’m just an idiot who gets horny like any other men,” he said.
“People may call it immoral. But I don’t lie, I don’t cheat, I don’t steal, I don’t hurt people,” he added.
Colglazier, a construction worker before he retired, said he is not sure why he is being charged as downloading pornography in America is legal.
‘They took my son’
“I’m here for my son. I would not jeopardize losing my son. I did not know I was breaking the law,” he said.
He lamented that the Department of Social Services and Development took his son after he got arrested.
They said they will bring him to the orphanage, he added.
Colglazier said that his wife left him to go to Saudi Arabia.
“We we’re supposed to meet in Manila to get the passport of my son, but my wife abandoned us,” he said.
He added that he didn’t get any money from uploading the sex videos and only has US $500 in the bank and couldn’t afford to post bail.
The court has set a P120,000 bail for violation of anti-photo and video voyeurism act.
Colglazier also said he couldn’t afford a lawyer and that a public lawyer was assigned to him.
He said that the woman who filed a complaint with the NBI is doing chores at his house.
“I pay her for house work. I guess she was planning this. I don’t understand it,” he added.
During the raid, NBI operatives recovered the suspect’s laptop and cellphone, which contain multiple sex videos of him with both male and female partners.