Bucks bizman cops plea; had sex with teen orphans
A wealthy Bucks County businessman with dual Russian-American citizenship pleaded guilty yesterday in federal district court to traveling to St. Petersburg so he could have sex with underage teen girls.
A wealthy Bucks County businessman with dual Russian-American citizenship pleaded guilty yesterday in federal district court to traveling to St. Petersburg so he could have sex with underage teen girls.
Andrew Mogilyansky, 38, of Richboro, a well-spoken, bespectacled man, admitted that he traveled to the Russian city between Dec. 1, 2003 and Jan. 31, 2004 and had trysts with three girls - two 13-year-olds and one 14-year-old - whom he had picked up at an orphanage.
Mogilyansky's attorney, Jack J. McMahon Jr., negotiated a plea agreement with the government in which the parties agreed to a prison term of 78 to 97 months. Mogilyansky also agreed to pay $5,000 to each of the three victims, representing the cost of mental-health treatment.
U.S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin, who set sentencing for July 30, deferred accepting the plea pending a pre-sentence investigation report to be prepared by the probation department.
Mogilyansky selected the three girls at an orphanage in St. Petersburg and took them to an apartment he owned where he had sex with each of them, the government's plea memorandum said.
Authorities had alleged in an indictment unsealed in December that Mogilyansky "recruited" the victims to work for a child-prostitution business known as "Berenika" and that he was an investor in the business.
McMahon said Mogilyansky did not recruit any girls to become prostitutes and had no stake in Berenika. (There was no mention of any involvement with Berenika by Mogilyansky in the plea agreement.)
Those involved in Berenika were arrested, tried and convicted in Russia in 2006. Prosecutors alleged Mogilyansky left Russia in July 2004.
Authorities here worked with their Russian counterparts to make the case against Mogilyansky.
Mogilyansky was arrested here on Dec. 2, 2008 and initially placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring and other conditions by U.S. Magistrate Judge Carol Sandra Moore Wells.
But prosecutors quickly appealed Wells' decision, arguing that Mogilyansky traveled to Eastern Europe frequently, had a net worth of more than $5 million and was a flight risk. McLaughlin subsequently revoked his bail on Dec. 11, 2008 and ordered him held for trial.
Court papers said Mogilyansky is the owner and CEO of IFEX Global, which distributes fire extinguishing equipment, exports cars and has offices in Russia, Ukraine and Georgia.
But McMahon said mostly what Mogilyansky did prior to his arrest was export cars overseas.
The defense attorney said Mogilyansky was a "good guy, a smart guy, who made some errors in perception and judgment" five years ago, adding: "He's not a pedophile." (Mogilyansky is married and has several young children.)
Mogilyansky founded a now-dormant charity that raised $1.2 million to help survivors of the bloody 2004 school-hostage crisis in the province of North Ossetia in which more than 300 hostages were killed, more than half of them children. *
