Feds: Berwyn lawyer intimidated Russian boy into having sex

Federal prosecutors say a wealthy international businessman-lawyer from Berwyn, charged with traveling to Russia in August 2001 to have sex with a 15-year-old boy, "psychologically manipulated" his victim through "fear and intimidation."

According to the court filing, the lawyer, Kenneth Schneider, allegedly showed his victim - a Russian ballet dancer - a movie about the famous Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, allegedly comparing the two.

The feds say Schneider also showed his alleged victim figurines he purchased of mythical half-human, half-goat creatures known as fauns. (In the 1912 ballet "The Afternoon of a Faun," Nijinsky reportedly mimed masturbation with the scarf of a nymph.)

Prosecutors may show the movie to jurors. Jury selection in the trial of Schneider, 45, who has pleaded not guilty, is to begin this morning.

The defense says Schneider is not the monster portrayed by the government but is, instead, a benefactor to financially challenged youth with an aptitude for the arts.

The alleged victim, Roman Zavarov, was publicly identified by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle Morgan-Kelly and Vineet Gauri in a trial memorandum filed Sept. 10.

Zavarov, now 24 and married, is a professional ballet dancer in Arizona. He is expected to be the government's star witness against Schneider.

Other witnesses are expected to include his parents, his wife, a housekeeper for Schneider in Moscow, a Russian law-enforcement official and three members of a Moldovan family.

Prosecutors said that in May 2008, Schneider took a 13-year-old Moldovan boy - a musician who was being assisted financially by an arts foundation founded by Schneider - to New Orleans to attend a class and perform in a concert.

The feds say Schneider took the boy to a swimming pool alone and allegedly placed his hands on the boy's body to "check his spine."

By 2008, Schneider had ended his sexual relationship with Zavarov, prosecutors said.

Ten years earlier, Schneider allegedly began having oral sex with Zavarov one week after the boy, then 12, moved into Schneider's Moscow apartment.

Schneider agreed to provide financial assistance to Zavarov, a ballet student at the Bolshoi Academy. He had been dropped from enrollment because his parents couldn't afford to pay room or board. Schneider offered to help, prosecutors say, but only on condition that the boy live in Schneider's apartment.

The feds say Schneider then had oral and anal sex with the boy over the next six years.

The indictment alleges that on Aug. 22, 2001, after Schneider brought Zavarov to Philadelphia to study ballet, he and Zavarov returned to Moscow and the alleged sexual abuse resumed.

Prosecutors said in court papers that Schneider told Zavarov to keep their relationship secret or Schneider would get in trouble and could go to jail. They said he told Zavarov that people would not understand their relationship and that Zavarov's future as a ballet dancer would be jeopardized and he would have no financial support.

Defense attorney Joseph P. Green Jr. said that Schneider and Zavarov did not have a sexual relationship.

He would not say whether Schneider would testify in his own defense.

Green said that "plenty of people" close to both Zavarov and Schneider maintain that nothing improper occurred between them.

"There were lots of kids that Ken helped and none of them said anything bad about Ken," Green said, adding that Schneider "didn't do anything wrong with any of them."

Schneider founded the Apogee Foundation, which provides financial aid to young artists and musicians.

The defense attorney said that Schneider's sometime-housekeeper, who lived across from Schneider's Moscow apartment, said she never saw anything untoward between Schneider and Zavarov.

The criminal case stems from a federal civil lawsuit filed here in 2008 against Schneider by Zavarov and his wife in which they allege that Schneider schemed for years to keep him available for sex and routinely abused him in Russia, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

Schneider worked for a Russian investment firm and its affiliates, controlled by the billionaire Roman Abramovich, from 2000 to 2006, as chief international lawyer and international trade representative.

Schneider's resume says that in 2002, he was the first foreign citizen nominated to the board of Aeroflot, the Russian airline.

More recently, Schneider has been president and CEO of Aurience Ltd., a London-based consulting group.

Authorities unsealed the indictment against Schneider in March, after he was arrested in Cyprus. He was extradited to the United States in May, and has been in federal custody since.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have filed a flurry of legal motions in the runup to trial.

The feds wanted to tell jurors about all of Schneider's alleged sexual misconduct with Zavarov between 1998 and 2004, but defense attorneys objected.

U.S. District Judge Juan Sanchez ruled that prosecutors may only tell a jury about Schneider's alleged sexual abuse of Zavarov between Aug. 22, 2000, and Nov. 22, 2001, the time frame including the alleged conduct for which he is charged.