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	Perlitz Sex-abuse Trial Looms As Battle of Credibility By Michael P. Mayko Stamford Advocate April 5, 2010 http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Perlitz-sex-abuse-trial-looms-as-battle-of-435169.php NEW HAVEN -- This fall's trial of Douglas Perlitz, the honored Fairfield University accused of sexually abusing some of the Haitian street boys that a charity he established was supposed to help, will be a "credibility contest," according to Perlitz's lawyer. "Put aside everything else," said William F. Dow III, who in preparing to defend Perlitz is poring over 65,000 pieces of the prosecution's evidence, including 25 videotaped interviews with victims and witnesses. "It's going to come down to the credibility of the victims against the credibility of Douglas Perlitz." But Dow, buoyed by his success against federal prosecutors with last week's hung jury in a Shelton developer's corruption trial, said he expects to travel with an investigator and interpreter to Haiti in June to build his defense. There's also a slim possibility Dow may not have to go. U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton is weighing a defense contention that the indictment should be dismissed because it is unconstitutional and lacks evidence criminal activity occurred in Connecticut. "He was arrested in Colorado," said David Gruberg, another defense lawyer. "That's ... where he resided." Even Arterton expressed concern the indictment is sparse in terms of criminal conduct tied to Connecticut. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Reynolds, who with Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel is prosecuting Perlitz, argued otherwise. Reynolds told the judge last week that Perlitz used a Connecticut-based travel agency from 2000 to 2005 and then Internet service in Connecticut from 2005 to 2008 to book his flights to Cap-Haitien, where his Project Pierre Toussaint education system was located. The project shut down last summer just before his arrest.
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