PORT HAWKESBURY, N.S. - A former Nova Scotia businessman has been convicted of 13 sex crimes against boys in the 1970s.

Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh had faced a total of 26 charges of indecent assault and gross indecency involving three complainants.

The charges against the 67-year-old MacIntosh go back 15 years in a case that required prosecutors to extradite him from India.

Three complainants testified earlier this month that MacIntosh repeatedly fondled and performed oral sex on them when they were between 11 and 14 years old.

They alleged the incidents occurred in the 1970s in various locations around northeastern Nova Scotia.

During his testimony, MacIntosh admitted performing oral sex on two of the complainants but said they were older than the age of consent at the time and that it was consensual.

Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Simon MacDonald called MacIntosh's actions "repugnant" and ordered him to be held in custody pending a future sentencing hearing.

In delivering his verdict Tuesday, MacDonald said he found the evidence of the first complainant credible but had difficulty with some of the evidence provided by the second complainant.

During the trial, the now middle-aged complainants testified they were severely traumatized by their sexual encounters with MacIntosh, and did not come forward for years out of fear and embarrassment.

The first complainant told the court he believed there had been more than 100 incidents of fondling or oral sex, saying the encounters were "routine."

He originally brought forward allegations of repeated sexual fondling and oral sex to RCMP in British Columbia in 1995. About a year later, MacIntosh was charged.

But by then he had left Canada to set up a business and residence in India.

The Mountie who investigated the complaint said he first called MacIntosh in New Delhi in January 1996 to tell him there was a warrant for his arrest.

MacIntosh claimed the phone went dead before he heard of the warrant, and -- though he said he was "curious" -- he never called back. In 1997, he was told his passport wasn't being renewed due to the criminal charges.

Extradition proceedings started in 1997 but were marred by delays. New allegations of abuse came forward in 1999. Prosecutors halted the extradition as police checked into those allegations.

MacIntosh was extradited to Canada in June 2007.

Defence lawyers had applied for a stay before the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, saying MacIntosh's right to a fair trial had been damaged by "abhorrent" delays. The court refused the application, concluding that MacIntosh was responsible for the delays because he didn't voluntarily return to Canada to face the charges.

The trial is the first of two MacIntosh is facing on a total of 36 charges of indecent assault and gross indecency.