US Government moves to deport former tennis coach convicted for child porn to NZ

The victim said Rex Haultain manipulated her by exploiting her desire to become an outstanding tennis player. Photo / 123RF

A tennis coach jailed in the US for soliciting sexually explicit photographs from a youth player is being lined up for deportation to New Zealand.

Rex Haultain, who was born in New Zealand and became an American citizen in 2012, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison and ordered to pay US$15,000 ($21,000) restitution after pleading guilty to one count of soliciting child pornography.

Missouri-based Haultain was indicted by a federal grand jury for the District of Kansas on February 13, 2013.

The latest court documents, from September 12, now show the child porn offender is trying to fight the US Government's move to withdraw citizenship and ultimately open the way for deportation to New Zealand.

On October 15 last year a trial attorney with the Office of Immigration Litigation - a division of the Department of Justice - filed a complaint to "revoke Haultain's naturalisation".

Haultain has tried to defeat the complaint, but his motion to dismiss was denied last month.

Court documents declare Haultain was represented by attorney Matthew Hoppock. The Weekend Herald approached Hoppock asking whether Haultain will continue to fight the case. Hoppock declined to comment.

The US Attorney's office says Haultain, who was 56 when convicted, admitted telling a minor he was coaching in 2009 that she sexually aroused him. While travelling to a tournament in the summer of 2010, he showed her a picture of his penis on a cellphone.

Later that year Haultain began asking her to send him naked photos. Eventually he sexually molested her.

At sentencing, the victim - then 18 - read a statement saying Haultain manipulated her by exploiting her desire to become an outstanding tennis player.

Her statement read in part: "Not a day goes by that I don't think about what happened to me. I believe that will be the case for a long time, and maybe even for the rest of my life."

Facts detailed in the plea agreement included deportation consequences and that "removal and other immigration consequences are the subject of a separate proceeding, and the defendant understands that no one, including his attorney or the district court, can predict to a certainty the effect of this conviction on his immigration status."