A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments this week on whether a serial child molester from Maryland who was later arrested in southeast Asia for abusing young boys should be released from prison without supervision.
A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in the case of Richard A. Schmidt, 74, before a panel of judges at the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The Washington Post on Monday highlighted Schmidt’s arrest and subsequent prosecution as a “major success” of the Protect Act, a 2003 federal law that gave prosecutors more power to go after Americans accused of sexually exploiting children overseas.
A federal judge in Baltimore last year said Schmidt was a “sexual predator,” but he agreed with the former elementary school teacher’s argument that he did not break US law because the crimes he pleaded guilty to did not occur in the first country he visited after leaving the United States – but rather the second.
US District Judge J. Frederick Motz ruled that there must a direct connection between the United States and the foreign country for prosecutors to have authority there, the Washington Post reported.
Schmidt’s appeal centers on whether his 2005 conviction was based on the wrong segment of his trip, and whether he was still “traveling” when he left the Philippines for Cambodia. Schmidt’s attorney, Mary E. Davis, said in court filings that Schmidt isn’t guilty because his travel to Cambodia was from the Philippines – where he lived and rented a home at the time – and not from the United States, the Washington Post reports.
“He was not some itinerant vagabond,” Davis said. “Schmidt left the United States with the intent not to return.”
Prosecutors, however, said the exact timing of Schmidt’s travel was not relevant.
“Congress intended to criminalize all illicit sexual conduct by US citizens abroad, regardless of when they traveled,” Sujit Raman, chief of appeals for the US attorney’s office in Maryland, told the Washington Post.
At least 90 Americans have been prosecuted under the law, according to the Justice Department. Prior to the Protect Act, which was signed by President Bush in 2003, authorities in the United States had to prove that an international predator went into another county intending to harm or molest a minor.
In Schmidt’s case, he served more than a dozen years in prison for molesting young boys in Maryland. He was released in 2002 and fled to Philippines and later Cambodia after allegedly violating his parole. In 2004, he was arrested in southeast Asia for abusing young boys there and was deported to the United States. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, the Washington Post reports.
The office of US Attorney Rod Rosenstein now wants the appeals court to reinstate Schmidt’s sentence and original plea agreement terms to ensure he’ll register as a federal sex offender. That would also prohibit him from applying for a new passport and from having unsupervised contact with children.
Calls seeking comment from Schmidt’s attorney and Rosenstein’s office were not returned on Monday. Schmidt is scheduled to be released on Jan. 20, according to federal Bureau of Prisons records. If Judge Motz’s ruling stands on appeal, prosecutors are worried that Schmidt won’t be supervised or registered as sex offender following his release.
Federal authorities are also trying to keep Schmidt in custody by asking to have him civilly committed after his release from a federal prison in North Carolina, the Washington Post reported. The Bureau of Prisons has determined that he’s a “sexually dangerous person,” which allowed the government to seek that separate track.
But that maneuver created another issue in the case, as the Bureau of Prisons ruling came after the Baltimore judge ruled that he was being unlawfully held, raising questions that the evaluation was valid. It’s unclear whether the appeals court will rule on the psychiatric commitment case, which was argued in October, the Washington Post reported.
In 2004, authorities said Schmidt’s arrest was part of “Operation Predator,” a child sex crackdown in more than 30 countries. Allen Doody, special agent in charge of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore, said the accused “sex tourists” often visited poor, underdeveloped countries with a lack of social services and infrastructure.
“Cambodia is about as far away from Baltimore as you can get, but no matter how far away you go, we’ll catch up to you,” Doody said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “If we can get you in Cambodia, we can get you anywhere.”