Rugby player Michael Quinn's meth habit 'no excuse' for attempts to sleep with six-year-old boy

Michael Quinn has been charged in the US with child sex offences. Photo / Facebook

Melbourne rugby player Michael Quinn's methamphetamine addiction was no excuse for deciding he would try to rape a six-year-old boy at what he thought was a Los Angeles sex party organised by paedophiles, prosecutors have told a US judge.

Quinn, 33, an IVF geneticist arrested in an undercover sting in May while on a US rugby trip, will be sentenced in a downtown LA court on October 31. Prosecutors have recommended Quinn be sentenced to 12 years' jail and lifetime supervision when released.

"Despite the friendly, congenial mask defendant showed to the world, defendant lived a secret life online," assistant US lawyer Joey Blanch wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed this week.

"He used the anonymity of the internet to share his secret sexual interest in children, searching out like-minded people and ultimately arranging to purchase a six-year-old boy he intended to sodomise."

Quinn played rugby in Melbourne, Australia, and was on a rugby trip to the US when he was arrested. Photo / Facebook

The court filing exposed publicly Quinn's addiction to meth, the extent of his sexual lust for children, a blog he wrote about sexually abusing children and plans he was making to meet "like-minded pervs" in New York.

Quinn, who worked at a Melbourne IVF clinic and was in the US to play with the Melbourne Chargers rugby union team in the Bingham Cup in Nashville, was staying at a Hollywood Hills home he was renting with teammates on the first leg of the trip.

Quinn snuck away to the LA beachside hotel without his friends knowing and was arrested when he handed $US260 ($340) to an undercover agent posing as a pimp.

US authorities posing as paedophiles began communicating with Quinn in early May after he posted on a social networking site: "Aussie perv, heading to the US late May/June interested to meet others while I'm there. LA, Nashville, NYC".

Authorities said they found child pornography on his phone and also seized a meth pipe.

Quinn has entered a guilty plea to a charge of travelling to the US with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

The US Probation Office has recommended a 10-year sentence.

"The government agrees with defendant that he is a drug user; however, there is simply no evidence that drug abuse contributed to his sexual interest in children or that it excuses or even explains his determined efforts to rape a six-year-old," Ms Blanch wrote.