Earlier his year Gerard Zalewski, a 41-year-old convicted child rapist from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania was extradited back to the United States from England.
Zalewski, whose wanted poster had been featured in regular rotation on Today in Fort Smtih since 2017, had skipped out on his bail hearing in 2006, just before his sentencing for child rape charges.
The Montgomery County District Attorney's office reported that Zalewski's original charges stemmed from an investigation in the summer of 2004. During that time, Zalewski engaged in explicit online conversations with an undercover police officer posing as a 12-year-old girl. He later arranged to meet with the officer, believing her to be a young girl, and was arrested on August 15, 2004.
Further investigation revealed that Zalewski had previously had sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl from Bucks County, whom he had met online in June 2004.
On November 14, 2005, Zalewski pleaded guilty to two first-degree felonies related to these incidents. He was out on bail awaiting sentencing when he failed to appear for his hearing on March 29, 2006. Consequently, he was sentenced in absentia to five to 20 years in state prison.
"We have been waiting to get justice for our victim, who was sexually assaulted by Zalewski," said District Attorney Kevin Steele. "Now that he is back on American soil, he will not only face 5 to 20 years in prison, but he also faces new charges due to fleeing and failing to appear. This defendant, found to be a sexually violent predator, will be off the streets for a very long time."
Zalewski was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list and was located 10 years later in England, where he was convicted on similar charges. English police arrested him in June 2016, and he pleaded guilty in October 2016 to two counts of penetrative sexual activity with a child, meeting a child following sexual grooming, making indecent photographs of a child, and false imprisonment.
Authorities reported that Zalewski groomed a 13-year-old girl online, manipulated her into sending explicit images, and subjected her to hours-long sexual abuse in a park.
After serving 12 years in an English prison, Zalewski was extradited to the U.S. on August 23. On September 4 he was bound over for trial in Montgomery County and he remains behind bars on a $1 million bond.
