Published: May 09, 2008 07:19 am         

Stumped for 2 years, Interpol gets help in child-porn case

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) — A computer file called “Thai—Luv,” seized in Norway and packed with child pornography, had frustrated Interpol investigators for more than two years.

A middle-aged, stocky white man, gray-haired and bespectacled, does nothing to conceal his identity in the photos as he sexually abuses boys who may have been as young as 6.

A “BKK” luggage tag in the background indicated he was in Thailand — the code is that of a Bangkok airport — but the international police agency had no idea who the man was until it appealed to the public for help this week.

Within 48 hours, that move led to a cluttered apartment in Union City, N.J., and what appeared to be a double life.

Wayne Nelson Corliss, an actor and comedy writer who sometimes played Santa Claus and painted faces at parties, was arrested late Wednesday. Friends and neighbors said they never could have imagined him being involved in such crimes before investigators released his picture worldwide.

“I think I know this man,” one of the informants wrote, according to Interpol’s secretary general, Ronald Noble. “He is a good man and I am shocked!”

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.

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. Judy Stone, a neighbor who worked with him 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.”

Investigators said Corliss is believed to have sexually abused at least three boys, thought to be 6 to 10 years old, over three days in Thailand in 2002.

“He described it as ’euphoria”’ to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who arrested him, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Vartan said Thursday at Corliss’ first court appearance.

Vartan said agents found about 1,000 images of child pornography on computer hard drives in Corliss’ 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 bond pending a hearing Monday.

A SAG spokeswoman said the union does not confirm who is or is not a member.

It was only the second time that Interpol had launched such a public manhunt for a suspected pedophile. The first time, in October, led to the quick arrest by police in Thailand of Christopher Paul Neil, a 32-year-old Canadian. Neil went on trial in March, accused of sexually abusing a 9-year-old boy.

The photos that led to Corliss’ arrest were seized by police in Norway in 2006. Photos released by Interpol showed the gray-haired man wearing glasses, or lying on a checkered mattress or blanket in a yellow plaid shirt.

Noble said 460 leads flooded in within the first 24 hours after Interpol launched its public appeal Tuesday. Three of those leads, e-mailed to Interpol from people in the U.S., were particularly strong referred to the suspect by the name Casey Wayne, Noble said.

The leads also came with photographs of the man and other details about him, including a resume for Corliss that described him as “an acclaimed portrayer of Santa Claus every winter holiday season,” who played at parties for New York banks and others, Noble said.

A computerized Interpol database of child abuse images played a part in the manhunt. The first photos seized in Norway and others received in the two years since were run through the database of more than 520,000 images.

In all, the database and police investigations helped turn up around 800 images, including nearly 100 of the man himself and others of his suspected victims or places where he is thought to have committed his alleged crimes, Interpol said.

According to ICE, Corliss traveled extensively in Asia, including making apparent trips to Thailand in 2000 and 2002.

Raven Squire, the superintendent of the apartment building where Corliss has lived for more than two decades, said Corliss was very 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.”

“I’ve worked many children’s parties with him. Whatever he did in Thailand, he did in Thailand,” said Stone, the woman who has worked with him. “Whatever he did ... he didn’t do it here or convey that in his work with children.”

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