MIAMI, United States (CMC) — The American owner of a missionary orphanage in Haiti has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing the children in his care.

Daniel Pye, who ran a missionary orphanage in Haiti for years, where he fed and cared for 22 children, has been arrested and “hit with federal charges of sexually abusing some of the minors he was charged to protect.

Pye, 35, originally from Bradenton, Florida, volunteered at Haitian orphanages for years with his wife before they started their own in Jacmel, a southern coastal city in Haiti.

Missionary orphanages house, care for, feed and educate orphans, as well as underprivileged children with living parents.

Pye, who lives in Ashdown, Arkansas, was arrested and charged with child sex tourism.

The Miami Herald reports that prosecutors have accused Pye of molesting three of the girls in his care.

One, who was six years old at the time, said her mother was fired from her job at the orphanage after she confronted Pye.

The complainant told investigators in 2015 that there were four victims, but most of the abuse was centred on her.

“She said Pye sexually abused her every day, whether his wife was home or not, beginning in 2008, when she was approximately six years old, and ending in 2011.”

A second victim, who was nine at the time of the abuse, told authorities she saw Pye molesting the first girl and having sex with another victim, who was around 12 or 14 years old at the time.

The Herald reports that Pye had been in trouble with the law in Haiti on  previous occasions –  when he was held in a Haitian jail cell for five months — at first on no charges and then for possessing “illegal documents.”

He was only freed due to the combined efforts from lawyers, missionary friends, Haitian senators, the country’s Ministry of Justice and the US Embassy.