Convicted Montgomery County child molester in court, charged with evading arrest

NORRISTOWN — A convicted child molester who was recently captured after spending 20 years on the run in England and behind bars for missing his 2006 sentencing hearing in Montgomery County now faces new charges related to his alleged attempt to evade arrest.

Gerard Boguslaw Zalewski, 41, formerly of Clinton, New Jersey, was tried after a preliminary hearing before District Judge Hakim K. Jones on charges of evading criminal prosecution and failure to appear in connection with incidents that occurred in 2006.

Zalewski is scheduled to appear in District Court for a formal arraignment on the charges on October 16, after which a judge will set a trial date.

Zalewski has since served a five- to 20-year prison sentence imposed in absentia by a Montgomery County judge in March 2006 for having sexual contact with a Bucks County girl he met online.

Zalewski was extradited from England and arrived on U.S. soil last month after serving a sentence in a British prison for sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl.

During the preliminary hearing on the flight to avoid punishment charge, Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman relied on the testimony of District Detective Michael Henricks to prove that Zalewski fled the United States in 2006. She also highlighted the extraordinary efforts made by district authorities to locate Zalewski, including working with the FBI, which had placed him on the Most Wanted List, and with Interpol.

Cauffman relied on the testimony of Zalewski's former defense attorney, Michael Musa-Obregon, to prove that Zalewski failed to appear for his sentencing on sexual assault charges in Montgomery County in March 2006. Cauffman also presented the district judge with court transcripts showing that Zalewski failed to appear for sentencing.

If convicted, the charges of evading punishment and failure to appear in court can result in a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Zalewski was originally arrested on August 15, 2004, after he arranged to meet over the Internet outside the Abington Library on Old York Road with an undercover officer who he believed was a 12-year-old girl. When investigators searched Zalewski's car, they found condoms, an ice pick and a digital camera, according to the criminal complaint filed by Abington investigators.

During the course of that investigation, investigators also identified a 13-year-old girl from Southampton, Bucks County, who said she met Zalewski online. The girl told authorities that Zalewski picked her up from her home in June 2004 and performed sexual acts on her in his car in a remote area of ​​Bucks County, according to court records.

Zalewski was subsequently arrested a second time for child sexual abuse in connection with the incident in Bucks County.

Montgomery County prosecutors assumed jurisdiction over both cases, and on November 14, 2005, Zalewski, then 22, pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse in connection with the sexual contact he had with the Bucks County girl in June 2004, as well as attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse after attempting to arrange a sexual relationship in Abington with a person he believed to be a 12-year-old girl, but who was an undercover agent with the Montgomery County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

At that time, Zalewski was allowed to remain free pending sentencing on $100,000 bail, which he posted through a bail bond company.

Judge Joseph A. Smyth ordered that Zalewski undergo an examination by the Pennsylvania State Sexual Offenders Assessment Board to determine whether he was a sexually violent offender. In January 2006, the state board recommended that a judge classify Zalewski as an offender, setting the stage for the sentencing hearing.

When Zalewski failed to appear for his sentencing on March 29, 2006, Smyth sentenced him in absentia to 5 to 20 years in prison. Smyth also issued an arrest warrant for Zalewski at that time on the new charges of fleeing to avoid punishment and failure to appear in court.

In 2006, prosecutors claimed that Zalewski had ties to Poland and did not rule out that he had managed to leave the United States despite having to surrender his passport while on bail. Authorities placed Zalewski on a number of different so-called international “watch lists.”

When he fled, prosecutors called Zalewski “extremely dangerous,” referring to the man who carried an ice pick when he showed up to meet with the undercover agent in the Montgomery County case. County authorities worked with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office to track down Zalewski and alerted the international community that a warrant was out for his arrest.

Local authorities eventually followed Zalewski to England in 2016, when he was arrested for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in Bamber Bridge, Preston in Lancashire, MediaNews Group reported at the time.

At the time, authorities said Zalewski manipulated the 13-year-old girl online into sending him explicit images before arranging to meet her in a park in June 2016. According to authorities, Zalewski sexually abused the British girl for several hours, including taping her mouth shut, putting a dog collar around her neck, writing the words “rape me” on her leg and taking photos of her with his mobile phone.

According to a press release from Lancashire Police on December 6, 2016, Zalewski pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a child, appeared before Preston Crown Court, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. British police said Zalewski was living in Dartford, Kent, at the time of his arrest.

Montgomery County authorities then initiated extradition proceedings with the goal of sending Zalewski back to the United States, but he could not be sent back until he had served his sentence in England.

Originally published: September 11, 2024 at 6:26 am