Former state trooper tried in online sex sting

By day, Albert Silveri III reconstructed the brutal reality of car crashes as a state trooper out of the Philadelphia barracks.

But by night, the stocky white man concocted hundreds of sexual Internet fantasies in which he was everything from a 6-foot-tall black man to a health-club manager, he testified in his defense yesterday in Delaware County Court.

It was his last chat room fantasy - to have sex with a woman and her two little girls - that brought reality crashing down around him and landed him on the other side of the law.

Caught discussing that last fantasy online in a sting set up last year by the Delaware County District Attorney's Office, Silveri admitted yesterday during his bench trial before Judge Frank T. Hazel that he had particpated in the chats.

"I've had hundreds of these conversations over the years about sex with people over the Internet," said Silveri, 40, of Aston. "I can knock out a conversation blindfolded. It's hard to explain."

Silveri admitted that from April to July 2008, under the screen name StrongWilled07, he talked in graphic detail about having group sex with a mother, who was actually an undercover county detective, and what he believed were her 8- and-10-year-old daughters.

He did deny, however, that he had any intention of ever going through with the acts, even though on July 21 he set up three meetings and missed them all.

"The conversation is the fantasy, not the actual doing," he said. "The whole fantasy is talking about meeting."

His attorney, Steven Pacillio, said that Silveri should be found innocent under a Pennsylvania statute known as renunciation because he had purposefully missed the meetings by staying at work late and making dinner plans with a friend.

Pacillio said that even though Silveri initially solicited a crime, he prevented the criminal act by never showing up.

Deputy District Attorney Michael Galantino said that Silveri's intent is evident by the progression of his chats, all of which he initiated and all of which became more graphic in detail, including talking about how the youngest girl would feel as he raped her.

"He is transferring fantasy into reality," he said.

Galantino argued that Silveri didn't voluntarily miss the meetings but rather that he was called to work on short notice to get witnesses for a preliminary hearing the following day.

"Renunciation is quite different than interruption," he said.

Silveri admitted to previously having sexual liaisons with people he had met online.

Despite the graphic nature of the chats in question, Silveri said that he's had more explicit chats with people than the ones he did with the undercover detective.

"I could write this conversation about you if I wanted to," Silveri said to Galantino. "That's how many conversations about sex I've had on the Internet."

"I don't think that's reassuring," Galantino said.

Silveri is charged with eight counts of solicitation, including that of the rape of a child, and one count of criminal use of a computer, according to court records.

He remains free on $250,000 bail until Hazel renders his verdict on June 26.

Silveri, an eight-year state police veteran, resigned as a corporal last year after he was arrested. *