Home Philadelphia Press Releases 2010 Non-Profit’s Founder Convicted in Sex Tourism Case
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Non-Profit’s Founder Convicted in Sex Tourism Case

U.S. Attorney’s Office October 01, 2010
  • Eastern District of Pennsylvania (215) 861-8200

PHILADELPHIA—Kenneth Schneider, 45, was convicted by a jury today of traveling for the purpose of engaging in sex with a minor and transporting a person for criminal sexual conduct, announced United States Attorney Zane David Memeger. Schneider, founder and president of the Apogee Foundation, was arrested March 27, 2010, in Larnaca, Cyprus. In the summer of 1998, Schneider traveled to Moscow, Russia where he told two ballet instructors at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography that he was willing to provide “assistance” to students attending the academy. The instructors identified a 12-year-old student whose family could no longer afford to pay his board. Schneider convinced the boy’s parents to allow him to live with Schneider in an apartment a few blocks from the school. From the fall of 1998 until 2004, Schneider engaged in a sexual relationship with the victim, bringing him to Philadelphia for a summer program in 2001, then returning to Moscow with the victim in August 2001, to continue the sexual relationship.

Sentencing, before U.S. District Court Judge Juan R. Sanchez, is scheduled for January 12, 2011. The defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 15 years for count one and 10 years for count two.

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Investigative Committee of the General Procuracy of the Russian Federation, the ICE Attache-Moscow, Russia, and Interpol. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Michelle Morgan-Kelly and Vineet Gauri.

The U.S. Attorney wishes to thank the Investigative Committee of the General Procuracy of the Russian Federation, without whose investigative assistance the investigation could not have been completed.

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