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QUICK CATCH: Wayne Nelson Corliss is arrested after Interpol's online appeal drew a swift response. He was an actor who often played Santa Claus at year-end parties in New York. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEWARK (NEW JERSEY) - THE US authorities on Thursday arrested a 58-year-old man accused of sexually abusing young Asian boys, ending a two-day global manhunt sparked by a rare public appeal from Interpol.
Wayne Nelson Corliss was arrested in Union City, just outside New York City, and later appeared handcuffed in court in Newark, New Jersey, wearing a grey sweater and looking nervous.
People who knew him said that he was an actor who played Santa Claus and painted children's faces.
They described him as a witty man who liked to write and eschewed 9-to-5 jobs in favour of acting and entertainment gigs.
Corliss was charged with one count of producing child pornography on Thursday.
At the hearing, Assistant US Attorney Lee Vartan said Corliss told the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who arrested him that he had sex with three boys over three nights in Thailand in 2002.
'He described it as 'euphoria' to the agents,' the attorney said.
Agents also found about 1,000 images of child pornography on computer hard drives in his apartment.
They also found several pairs of boys' underwear, including one that Corliss told the authorities he had brought back from Thailand as a souvenir.
Corliss, who spoke only twice during the court appearance, said that he was a comedy writer and a member of the Screen Actors Guild. He asked for a lawyer to be appointed for him but was not asked to enter a plea. He was being held without bond pending a hearing on Monday.
Ms Judy Stone, a neighbour who worked with him as an entertainer at corporate parties, art fairs and bar mitzvahs, said he did a wonderful job.
'He's the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen,' she said.
Mr Raven Squire, the superintendent of the building where Corliss has lived for more than two decades, said: 'I've never seen him act in a way that was creepy or predatory towards children.'
He said Corliss was very computer-savvy and had a cluttered apartment, but that he never saw anything inappropriate there.
Corliss' arrest came two days after Interpol took the rare step of asking for the public's help in finding a child abuser and posted images of the suspect online.
Two years of investigation had failed to determine the identity, whereabouts or even the nationality of a white-haired man seen in pictures sexually abusing boys aged between six and 10 years old in South-east Asia.
Interpol's secretary-general Ronald Noble said 460 leads flooded in within the first 24 hours after the agency launched its public appeal on Tuesday. Three of those leads, e-mailed to Interpol from people in the United States, were particularly strong, and all referred to the suspect by the name Casey Wayne.
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, Mr Noble said.
In one of the e-mails, an informant wrote: 'I think I know this man...He is a good man and I am shocked!'
It was only the second time that Interpol had launched such a public manhunt for a suspected paedophile. The first time, last 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 nine-year-old boy.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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