By Michael P. Mayko
News Times
January 28, 2010
http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Fairfield-U-honoree-faces-more-charges-of-sex-340932.php
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| Doug Perlitz in 2004 |
BRIDGEPORT -- A Fairfield University graduate under federal indictment for sexually abusing underprivileged Haitian boys through his charity that provided them with food, shelter and schooling now faces more charges.
Douglas Perlitz, the founder of Project Pierre Toussaint in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city, was charged Thursday by a federal grand jury with sexually abusing nine more boys in his program.
The charity was established with millions in donations from wealthy Fairfield and Westchester County residents, many with ties to the Fairfield University community, and Perlitz was honored by the university with an honorary degree in 2002 for his charitable enterprise.
Perlitz now faces nine charges of traveling from Connecticut to Haiti to engage in sex with minors and 10 charges of engaging in sex with minors in a foreign land.
The new indictment brings to 18 the number of boys who Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel and Stephen Reynolds claim were abused sexually by Perlitz between 1998 and 2008.
Because of the new charges, Perlitz, who is being held without bond at the Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island, will be brought to federal court in New Haven at 9 a.m. Feb. 2. He will appear before U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton to enter new not guilty pleas.
It also could prompt William F. Dow III and David Grudberg, Perlitz's defense lawyers, to ask for a postponement in the scheduled May 3 trial date.
"As the U.S. attorney acknowledged, an indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt," said Dow. "Doug Perlitz is entitled to a fair trial at which it is the government's burden to prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."
Nor does it seem that the grand jury's work is completed.
Federal investigators have been looking into how the money raised through donations to the Haiti Fund was used after being transferred to a Haitian bank account Perlitz controlled.
The indictment alleges that Perlitz attempted to buy his victims' silence with meals, clothes and electronic gifts.
Fairfield University hired its own lawyer to investigate how money on campus for the program was spent.
While the indictment identifies the victims by initials, it does not list specific dates that the alleged abuse took place. In most cases it lists only the years that the incidents may have taken place.
Last week, Perlitz's defense team filed a motion to dismiss the original indictment claiming it lacked specificity by not identifying the dates and places where the alleged abuses occurred.
"The omission of more detailed allegations about the defendant's alleged foreign travel is more than a mere technicality and instead strikes at the heart of the constitutional indictment requirement," Dow and Grudberg maintain in their dismissal motion.
They point out that Perlitz spent 11 years in Haiti.
"It is quite possible that months, or even years, could have passed between any foreign travel and the sexual conduct alleged in the indictment," the defense team maintains.
If convicted, Perlitz faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 30 years and a fine of up to $250,000 on each of the 19 charges.
U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy said in a statement the investigation is continuing and asked that anyone with information about the case call 203-773-2029.
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