Feds file new sex-abuse indictment againt Perlitz

Michael P. Mayko, STAFF WRITER

Published: 05:54 p.m., Wednesday, April 21, 2010

A new indictment contends that Douglas Perlitz used his relationship with an unidentified religious leader, who sources say is the Rev. Paul Carrier, as well as unnamed influential wealthy Catholics in Fairfield County, to help him remove two computers and a safe from his rented home in Cap-Haitien and return them to Connecticut. This allegedly occurred during an early stage of the probe into the sexual allegations against Perlitz. Carrier, who once served as Fairfield University's chaplain and director of campus ministry, has not been charged with any wrongdoing, nor have any of the unidentified area residents. Photo: Contributed Photo / Connecticut Post Contributed
Doug Perlitz. Photo: File Photo / Connecticut Post File Photo
Father Paul Carrier. Photo: File Photo / Connecticut Post File Photo

Federal prosecutors made good Wednesday on their vow to re-indict Douglas Perlitz, filing five more charges that the former Fairfield resident traveled from Connecticut to Haiti to engage in illicit sex with 18 street boys enrolled in the schooling programs he established.

The new indictment returned by a federal grand jury brings to 24 the number of counts Perlitz, 39, an honored Fairfield University alumnus, now faces. It's expected that he'll be brought from the Wyatt Federal Detention center in Rhode Island to the federal court house in New Haven to enter new not guilty pleas to the charges within the next 10 days.

The indictment also contends that Perlitz used his relationship with a religious leader, who sources say is the Rev. Paul Carrier, as well as unnamed influential wealthy Catholics in Fairfield County, to help him remove two computers and a safe from his rented home in Cap-Haitien and return them to Connecticut. This allegedly occurred during an early stage of the probe into the sexual allegations against Perlitz.

Carrier, who once served as Fairfield University's chaplain and director of campus ministry, has not been charged with any wrongdoing, nor have any of the unidentified area residents.

The new indictment comes at a time when U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton is weighing arguments from Perlitz's lawyers, William F. Dow and David Grudberg, to dismiss the original indictment because of a lack of specificity and questions about whether the case can be tried in Connecticut.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Reynolds, who is prosecuting the case with Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel, previously said the new indictment will clear up those issues by adding specific dates that Perlitz allegedly traveled from Fairfield and Bridgeport to New York, where he boarded flights that took him to Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city.

Cap-Haitien is where the alleged sex acts involving Perlitz and students enrolled in Project Pierre Toussaint, a charitable program the defendant established with help from the Order of Malta, a Roman Catholic philanthropic group, and the Haiti Fund, a charity set up by a group of wealthy Fairfield and Westchester County Catholics.

It also provides more details between the relationship of Carrier, identified as a "religious leader who had met and befriended Perlitz" and the defendant. It claims Carrier "frequently communicated with and visited Perlitz in Haiti and elsewhere."

Sources, including alleged victims, told the Connecticut Post during December interviews in Haiti that Carrier spoke nearly every day on the telephone with Perlitz, visited him at least once a month in Cap-Haitien and vacationed with him at nearby resorts.

The indictment further contends that Carrier maintained control over the Haiti Fund's checking account in Connecticut. It claims Perlitz traveled to and from Haiti was paid through donations or from the pocketbooks of the fund's wealthy board members.

Initially, Perlitz's flights were booked by an unidentified local travel agency. The itinerary that included Perlitz's name was made in care of Carrier and used his address in Fairfield, according to the indictment. In 2008 and 2009, tickets were purchased on line and charged to Carrier's credit card, the indictment alleges.

The indictment comes just days after Special Agent Rod Khattabi of the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Reynolds returned from an investigative trip to Cap-Haitien. Authorities have been attempting to trace the money spent on Project Pierre Toussaint, believing that some was used to buy the silence of victims as well as property in that city.

Investigators determined the following amounts were transferred from the Haiti Fund in Connecticut to Perlitz in Haiti: $67,300 in 2002; $117,000 in 2003; $168,000 in 2004; $280,000 in 2005; $346,000 in 2006; $639,500 in 2007, and $385,550 in 2008.

In August 2007 when some of Perlitz's alleged victims told their story to Cyrus Sibert, a Haitien radio journalist. Sibert's reporting led to investigations by the Haitian National Police, the United Nations, the U.S. and private detectives hired by the Haiti Fund. These investigations led to a falling out among board members, a drastic reduction in donations, Perlitz's termination and arrest in September, and closing the program last summer.

Once the allegations became public, the indictment claims that Perlitz used his relationship with Carrier and influential board members to bar investigators hired by the Haiti Fund from Perlitz's room in the home he rented for $6,000 a year from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Roman Catholic missionary group. The indictment charges Perlitz, through Carrier and board members, was able to get someone to fly to Haiti to remove two computers and a safe from Perlitz's room and to divert donations intended for the Haiti Fund to a different organization.

The indictment claims Perlitz traveled from Connecticut to Haiti on Nov. 25, 2003, to have sex with three boys; on Dec. 30, 2003, July 16, 2004, June 6, 2005, July 14, 2006 and March 30, 2008, to have sex with two boys, and on June 4, 2004, March 22, 2005, May 29, 2006 and Nov. 12, 2007 to have sex with one boy. The indictment lists five other dates back to 2001 in which Perlitz is accused of traveling from Connecticut to Haiti to engage in illicit sexual conduct. No information on the victims is detailed.