The Chester County Lawyer and known philanthropist who traveled to Moscow to find a 12-year-old boy to use as a sex slave for years was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday.
A U.S. district judge called 46-year-old Kenneth Schneider of Berwyn a “monster” before putting him behind bars for a decade and a half.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Schneider went to a Moscow ballet school in 1998 and offered to pay for a needy boy’s dance school tuition. The ballet instructors told him of a boy who could no longer pay his board, and Schneider then convinced the 12-year-old boy’s parents that he should live with him in an apartment a few blocks from the Moscow school.
Schneider sexually molested the boy for years while in Moscow and then brought the boy to Philadelphia as well.
“This investigation has exposed the disturbing truth concerning those individuals who believe they can victimize children abroad and not be held accountable in America for their very disturbing actions,” said John Kelleghan, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Philadelphia.
The victim, Roman Zavarov, who is now 25, testified against Schneider at the trial, saying that the founder of the Apogee Foundation had oral and/or anal sex with him three to four times a week when he was 14 and 15 years old.
Zavarov is now married and works as a professional ballet dancer in Arizona.
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In addition to the 15 years in prison, the judge ordered Schneider to pay $35,000 in restitution for Zavarov’s medical and psychological treatment.