Pedo cult leader jailed over iPad act

Yahoo News, Australia/Jully 31, 2024

By Steve Zemek

A convicted paedophile and self-appointed cult leader is once again back in jail after he breached the strict court-ordered conditions of his release by using private mode and deleting his browser iPad history.

William Kamm, the self-proclaimed “last pope” and leader of his southern NSW-based cult the “Order of St Charbel”, was re-arrested last year just months after he was released from custody.

The 74-year-old, who refers to himself as “Little Pebble”, was placed on an extended supervision order after the state successfully applied to the Supreme Court in a bid to monitor him after he served a prison sentence for preying on two teenage girls.

He served nearly a decade in jail for the sexual assault of two teenage girls in 1993 and 1995 at his cult’s compound near Nowra in southern NSW.

Both of his victims were female followers who were told they would be among his 12 “queens” and 72 “princesses” who would help him repopulate a “royal dynasty” after the second coming of Jesus, the court previously heard.

He was released on parole in 2014, but the state successfully applied for monitoring conditions to be imposed on him.

He was rearrested in May last year and charged with four breaches of his supervision order.

Earlier this month, his solicitor entered guilty pleas to two counts of of failing to comply with an extended supervision order, while another count was also taken into account when he appeared in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court for sentencing on Wednesday.

A fourth charge was dropped.

The court heard Kamm breached the conditions of his release by sending an email to a follower about posting information to his blog littlepebble.org.

He also used the Safari web browser on his iPad on private mode, the court heard.

The court heard when authorities inspected his iPad, they discovered his browser history had been deleted, in contravention of his supervision order.

The offences occurred within three months of his release from prison.

In November 2022, he was sentenced to just over a year in jail for a similar offence when he breached his supervision order by using his wife’s Facebook account to send a message.

He was released immediately because of time served but he was re-arrested in May last year.

The prosecution argued they were serious breaches given they hindered the authorities’ ability to monitor his movements.

Kamm’s barrister Malcolm Ramage KC described it as a “strange and rather sad case”.

The court heard he had suffered a stroke in 2018 and Mr Ramage asked Magistrate Theo Tsavdaridis to take into account his advanced age.

Mr Ramage said there was no evidence he was “covering his tracks” given it was unclear what material he was accessing or sending on the internet.

“He accepts she shouldn’t have done it,” Mr Ramage said.

Kamm was sentenced to 20 months in prison with a 13-month non-parole period.

His sentence was backdated to April 30, due to time spent in custody, and he will become eligible for release in May next year.

When asked if he understood the sentence, Kamm, watching via videolink from prison said “Thank you”.

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