Man jailed for Thai child-sex played Santa Claus

A US court has handed 19-and-a-half years in prison to a fledgling actor convicted of abusing children as young as six on trips to Thailand and posting the images on the internet.

Wayne Nelson Corliss, 60, was also ordered to pay a $5000 (US$5300) fine.

The federal court in Newark, New Jersey said Corliss would be under supervision for life.

Corliss was arrested in May last year in Union City, just outside New York, after a two-day global manhunt called by Interpol after Norwegian police spotted online images of his sex acts with children as young as six.

He later pleaded guilty to traveling to Thailand annually from 2000 to 2002 with an intent to abuse children and to storing images of child pornography on his home computer, the US Department of Justice said.

Corliss allegedly gained access to the young boys at the home in Thailand of Canadian John Wrenshall, who was extradited last year from Britain to the United States and awaits a separate trial in New Jersey.

The Newark-based Star-Ledger newspaper said Corliss played roles in small theatre productions in Manhattan and at least three movies including the 1982 comedy Waitress.

More recently, he made a living playing Santa Claus at children's birthday parties and fairs, the newspaper said.

It was Interpol's second public appeal for a suspected paedophile, a year after a high-profile operation that reconstructed computer images to track down suspected Canadian paedophile Christopher Paul Neil in Thailand.