Feds: Berwyn lawyer intimidated Russian boy into having sex

September 20, 2010|By MICHAEL HINKELMAN, hinkelm@phillynews.com 215-854-2656

Federal prosecutors say a wealthy international businessman-lawyer from Berwyn, charged with traveling to Russia in August 2001 to have sex with a 15-year-old boy, "psychologically manipulated" his victim through "fear and intimidation."

According to the court filing, the lawyer, Kenneth Schneider, allegedly showed his victim - a Russian ballet dancer - a movie about the famous Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, allegedly comparing the two.

The feds say Schneider also showed his alleged victim figurines he purchased of mythical half-human, half-goat creatures known as fauns. (In the 1912 ballet "The Afternoon of a Faun," Nijinsky reportedly mimed masturbation with the scarf of a nymph.)

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Prosecutors may show the movie to jurors. Jury selection in the trial of Schneider, 45, who has pleaded not guilty, is to begin this morning.

The defense says Schneider is not the monster portrayed by the government but is, instead, a benefactor to financially challenged youth with an aptitude for the arts.

The alleged victim, Roman Zavarov, was publicly identified by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle Morgan-Kelly and Vineet Gauri in a trial memorandum filed Sept. 10.

Zavarov, now 24 and married, is a professional ballet dancer in Arizona. He is expected to be the government's star witness against Schneider.

Other witnesses are expected to include his parents, his wife, a housekeeper for Schneider in Moscow, a Russian law-enforcement official and three members of a Moldovan family.

Prosecutors said that in May 2008, Schneider took a 13-year-old Moldovan boy - a musician who was being assisted financially by an arts foundation founded by Schneider - to New Orleans to attend a class and perform in a concert.

The feds say Schneider took the boy to a swimming pool alone and allegedly placed his hands on the boy's body to "check his spine."

By 2008, Schneider had ended his sexual relationship with Zavarov, prosecutors said.

Ten years earlier, Schneider allegedly began having oral sex with Zavarov one week after the boy, then 12, moved into Schneider's Moscow apartment.

Schneider agreed to provide financial assistance to Zavarov, a ballet student at the Bolshoi Academy. He had been dropped from enrollment because his parents couldn't afford to pay room or board. Schneider offered to help, prosecutors say, but only on condition that the boy live in Schneider's apartment.

The feds say Schneider then had oral and anal sex with the boy over the next six years.

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