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Bucks man must await sex-crime trial in prison

A Bucks County man accused of luring girls from a Russian orphanage and forcing them into prostitution will remain behind bars while he awaits trial here, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

A Bucks County man accused of luring girls from a Russian orphanage and forcing them into prostitution will remain behind bars while he awaits trial here, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

Andrew Mogilyansky, 38, a Russian American entrepreneur now living in Richboro, had been granted house arrest a day earlier, but U.S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin overruled the decision on appeal.

The judge agreed with prosecutors that Mogilyansky's wealth, language skills and global connections render the multimillionaire a flight risk.

U.S. Magistrate Carol Sandra Moore Wells had ruled Wednesday that Mogilyansky could be freed on house arrest, with electronic monitoring and other restrictions.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Morgan-Kelly, three teenage girls are prepared to testify that someone at the orphanage persuaded them to be taken by car to Mogilyansky's apartment in St. Petersburg, where he engaged in sex acts with them. The girls, then 13 and 14, were then sent to Moscow and hired out as prostitutes through a Web site that Mogilyansky helped run, the prosecutor said.

The crimes occurred in late 2003 through early 2004, she said. - AP