Anthony Mark Bianchi, 44, of North Wildwood, NJ, is being tried under a
little-tested 2003 law designed to thwart "sex tourism" by trying suspected
overseas child predators in US courts. Bianchi has been accused of assaulting
nearly a dozen minors on foreign soil.
Bianchi's attorney, high-profile defense lawyer Mark Geragos, said his client
is being falsely accused by Moldovan boys who are getting what amounts to a
swank prosecution-funded trip to the US in exchange for their testimony.
Four of eight accusers who testified at a closed-door court hearing in the
former Soviet republic recanted, while the others changed their stories
drastically, Geragos said. Prosecutors have said some of the accusers were too
embarrassed to say in their home country what happened.
Bianchi is accused of assaulting boys from Trebujeni, Moldova, a remote village
of 600 to 700 people, between 2003 and 2005. Federal prosecutor Michael Levy
told jurors the defendant spread his money around there for sinister reasons.
Bianchi allegedly gave a television and $25 to one family that innocently let
their son stay with him one night, prosecutors said.
"Everything he did was designed to make friends with these boys,"
Levy said. "And then, when their guards were down, he began his advances."
Prosecutors charge that Bianchi, through a local translator who helped procure
the boys, assaulted teenagers in exchange for money, liquor, gifts and trips,
including trips to Cuba and Romania.
Prosecutors suggested that only someone with ulterior motives would vacation in
the isolated village of Trebujeni, where most of the accusers live, but Geragos
said the town draws tourists with its scenic beauty and hilltop monastery.
"There are no four or five-star amenities, but it's hardly some impoverished
place that no one would ever go," Geragos said.
He described Bianchi-who with his parents owned a New Jersey beach motel-as a
veteran traveler who sought out offbeat destinations. Bianchi liked to stay in
small boarding houses to get to know the locals, Geragos said.
Bianchi was convicted of Russian charges connected to children from the same
village in 2000; he was sentenced to three years in prison but immediately
expelled from the country.
About 50 people, including Bianchi, have been charged to date under what's
known as the Protect Act. About 30 of them have been convicted.
