Phila. attorney charged in int'l child-sex case
Authorities unsealed an indictment yesterday charging a Philadelphia international attorney with traveling overseas to have sex with an underage boy.
Authorities unsealed an indictment yesterday charging a Philadelphia international attorney with traveling overseas to have sex with an underage boy.
Kenneth Schneider, 45, was arrested by Interpol in Laranca, Cyprus, on Saturday.
Schneider founded the Apogee Foundation in New York in 2004. It provides scholarships and assistance to children around the world with aptitude in fine arts. He's also president and chief executive officer of a London-based media and technology-consulting group.
But the indictment said Schneider had a secret life and a fondness for a Russian boy.
In 1998, in Moscow, Schneider became acquainted with a husband and wife who were ballet instructors at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography and told them he would provide "assistance" to students at the academy, the indictment said.
That summer the instructors introduced Schneider to a 12-year-old boy, identified in the indictment only by his initials, who had been removed from the academy because his parents could not afford it, the indictment said.
Schneider offered to pay the boy's board at the academy and later convinced his parents to let him live with Schneider at his apartment, only a few blocks from the academy, the indictment alleged.
The indictment said Schneider engaged in a sexual relationship with the boy beginning in fall 1998 and continuing until 2004.
Authorities said the illicit relationship began when Schneider "groomed" the boy for sexual contact by touching him, kissing him and buying him gifts. They said he also pressured the boy to keep the sexual relationship secret.
The relationship progressed to the point that Schneider had oral and anal sex with the boy, according to the indictment.
In summer 2001, when the boy was 15, the indictment alleged, Schneider arranged for the boy to travel with him to Philadelphia to attend a summer program for ballet study at the Rock School. They returned to Moscow in August 2001 and the relationship continued, the indictment said.
