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A judge sentenced a former Peace Corps volunteer to 15 years in prison for abusing girls under the age of 6 in South Africa while he was a volunteer there, federal officials said, according to CNN.

The sentencing was announced Thursday in a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Jesse Osmun, 33, of Milford, Connecticut, joined the Peace Corps in 2010 and worked in a nongovernmental organization's AIDS center for children whose families had suffered or died from the disease, his attorney, Richard Meehan, Jr., told CNN Thursday. Osmun volunteered as a Web designer for the center and worked with older children in a "scout" program.

While there, Osmun engaged in sexual acts with four girls, all under the age of 6, officials said. One girl was abused twice a week over the course of approximately five months, authorities said.

"The way that the government has framed the case is that a teacher walked into a room that (Osmun) was in with three little girls," Meehan said. The teacher noticed that Osmun quickly zipped his pants and, after questioning one of the girls, the teacher found that he had exposed himself and asked them to touch him.

When the program director of the NGO confronted him with these allegations, Osmun confessed to being involved with the four little girls, saying that he had touched them and asked them to touch him in exchange for candy, his attorney said. Osmun resigned from the Peace Corps and returned to the United States.

The U.S. Peace Corps has called Osmun's acts "reprehensible." The organization was notified about the allegations against him after he returned to the United States, and it immediately contacted authorities, the Peace Corps said in a statement.