Metro-east man pleads guilty to ‘illicit sexual conduct’ with Nepal minor

A Collinsville man pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal charge of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a child in Nepal.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois documents allege Kenneth Joseph Coombs, 58, traveled to Nepal in August 2016 and sexually abused and took illicit photographs of children. According to a news release on his plea, Coombs “used a combination of force, involuntary intoxication and payments to the children to commit the sex acts.”

Court documents in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois documents allege Kenneth Joseph Coombs, 58, traveled to Nepal in August 2016 and sexually abused and took illicit photographs of children. According to a news release on his plea, Coombs “used a combination of force, involuntary intoxication and payments to the children to commit the sex acts.”

At the time, Coombs was required to register as a sex offender in Missouri based on a prior conviction, the release said.

He was initially indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place – each count pertaining to a different victim under the age of 18 – between approximately late August 2016 until mid-September 2016.

However, as part of the plea agreement filed Thursday, Coombs only pleaded guilty to one count and the other counts will be dismissed at sentencing.

Coombs was arrested in the United States in September 2025, and has been in custody since, the news release says.

In the release, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois Steven D. Weinhoeft praised federal prosecutors and agents for “literally travel(ing) across the globe … to hunt down this child predator.”

“Coombs’ conduct was predatory, deliberate and devastating, and today’s guilty plea brings long-overdue accountability for the children he harmed,” Ryan Presley, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Springfield, Illinois, field office, said in the release. “Cases like this demand an unflinching response, and that is exactly what this investigation brought.”

As part of the plea agreement, the defense and prosecution agreed Coombs’ sentence should be between 11 and 25 years, which considers the nine years Coombs was incarcerated in Nepal, and supervised release for life. He will pay fines, too.

Coombs’ defense attorney Robert Elovitz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.