Departamento de Justiça americano investiga turismo sexual infantil na Amazônia, diz 'NYT'

O Departamento de Justiça dos Estados Unidos abriu investigação criminal sobre expedições de pesca esportiva na Amazônia, que podem ter sido usadas como "fachada" para americanos manter relações sexuais com meninas menores de idade, diz reportagem do diário americano New York Times publicada na edição impressa deste sábado. O jornal teve acesso a documentos judiciais que tratam do caso.
A reportagem destaca que a investigação e dois processos relacionados - uma investigação criminal paralela no Brasil e uma ação em corte federal na Geórgia - podem fornecer um raro olhar sobre os negócios da bilionária indústria de turismo sexual internacional, que tem cada vez mais focado o Brasil, na opinião da ONG Equality Now.
"O Brasil está tomando o lugar da Tailândia como local preponderante de turismo sexual nas férias", disse ao "New York Times" Kristen Berg, da Equality Now, uma ONG de Nova York que ajudou a trazer a ação para a Geórgia.

A ação judicial foi protocolada no mês passado em nome de quatro mulheres brasileiras que afirmam que foram coagidas como adolescentes a se prostituir para americanos em expedições de pesca operadas por um empresário de Atlanta. Uma das mulheres disse que tinha 12 anos na época.
Kristen, da Equality Now, disse que o processo foi o primeiro caso em que uma lei federal de 2000, de proteção a vítimas de tráfico e violência sexual, foi usada para pedir indenização contra alguém acusado de turismo sexual.
Na quinta-feira, o acusado no processo, Richard Schair, apresentou recurso pedindo que o processo fosse suspenso.
Em uma breve entrevista por telefone, Schair, que opera uma empresa em Atlanta de negócios imobiliários, disse que as acusações de turismo sexual eram falsas. Ele se recusou a discutir detalhes das investigações.
"As alegações são falsas", disse ele ao "New York Times". "Os fatos vão provar isso".
De acordo com os documentos judiciais apresentados por Schair, procuradores federais em Miami enviaram uma intimação para sua empresa em 2009 pedindo, entre outras coisas, a listas de clientes. Outro documento mostra que a Procuradoria notificou sua ex-mulher em dezembro para informar que investigadores tinham obtido informações indicando que ela estava "envolvida com uma empresa e/ou uma pessoa que pode ter envolvimento com turismo sexual infantil no Brasil."
Questionado sobre os documentos, porta-voz do Departamento de Justiça em Miami, onde o inquérito é conduzido, se recusou a confirmar ou negar a existência de uma investigação.
Traduções de documentos brasileiros, anexados por Schair ao pedido de suspensão, mostram que ele é acusado em processo brasileiro de exploração sexual de menores.
De acordo com o processo, Schair ou seus empregados recrutavam meninas em um clube para se juntar a eles em barco de pesca, onde as adolescentes foram coagidas a manter relações sexuais e pagas por isso.

via O Globo

Allegations Link U.S. Companies to Brazilian Sex Tourism

by Barry Meier
published in NY Times -  July 8, 2011

The Justice Department has been conducting a criminal investigation of sports fishing expeditions in the Amazon that may have been used as covers for Americans to have sex with underage girls, according to newly filed court papers.
The investigation and two related actions — a parallel criminal inquiry in Brazil and an unusual lawsuit filed in federal court in Georgia — could provide a rare look at the business operations of the multibillion-dollar international sex tour industry, which has increasingly focused on Brazil.
“Brazil is taking over from Thailand as a premier sex tourism vacation” spot, said Kristen Berg, an official of Equality Now, an advocacy organization in New York that helped bring the lawsuit in Georgia.
That lawsuit was filed last month on behalf of four Brazilian women who claim that they were coerced as minors to serve as prostitutes for Americans on Amazon fishing expeditions operated by an Atlanta-area businessman. One of the women said that she was 12 years old at the time.
Ms. Berg said the lawsuit was the first time that a federal law, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, had been used to seek damages from someone accused of operating sex tours.
On Thursday, the defendant in that case, Richard W. Schair, filed a motion asking that the lawsuit be stayed. The motion cited continuing criminal investigations in the United States and Brazil.
In a brief telephone interview, Mr. Schair, who operates an Atlanta-area real estate business, said that allegations that he was involved in child sex tours were untrue. He declined to discuss specifics of the inquiries.
“The allegations are false,” he said. “The facts will prove that.”
Solomon L. Wisenberg, a lawyer in Washington who represents Mr. Schair in connection with the federal criminal investigation, said he was confident that his client would not face charges. The status of the investigation is unclear, as Justice Department officials declined to comment.
Ms. Berg, of Equality Now, said that the group helped bring the Georgia lawsuit because it was looking for precedent-setting cases involving child sex tourism overseas.
She said that she and lawyers from a major firm, King & Spalding, which is working on the case pro bono, traveled to Brazil to interview prospective witnesses, including young women.
Both the lawsuit and the federal criminal investigation are apparently fallout from a separate lawsuit filed in 2007 by Mr. Schair against another operator of Amazon fishing tours, Philip A. Marsteller.
In that action, Mr. Schair charged that Mr. Marsteller had slandered him by telling people that he supplied clients on his fishing tours with prostitutes and drugs. Mr. Marsteller stood by his comments and, as part of his defense, sought statements from young women in Brazil as well as employees of Mr. Schair’s company, called Wet-A-Line Tours. The company is no longer operating.
In 2008, the two men settled the case, with Mr. Schair paying token compensation to Mr. Marsteller, said Kevin Buchanan, a lawyer in Dallas who represented Mr. Marsteller. Mr. Buchanan said that information that came up during the lawsuit led federal officials to begin an investigation of American business connections to child sex tourism in Brazil.
Several news reports in recent years have indicated that Mr. Schair was the subject of criminal investigations both here and in Brazil. But the filing Thursday in conjunction with the Georgia lawsuit was the first time the investigations were publicly acknowledged.
According to the court papers filed by Mr. Schair, federal prosecutors in Miami sent a grand jury subpoena to his company in 2009 asking for, among other things, customer lists. Another document shows that prosecutors notified his ex-wife in December that investigators had obtained information indicating that she was “involved with a company and/or an individual who may have engaged in child sex tourism in Brazil.”
Asked about the documents, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department in Miami, where the inquiry is based, declined, as a matter of policy, to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.
Translations of Brazilian documents, attached by Mr. Schair to his filing, show that he is charged in a proceeding there with the sexual exploitation of minors. He has denied the accusation.
Mr. Schair made the filing on Thursday on his own behalf.
According to the lawsuit filed last month, Mr. Schair or his employees or customers recruited young girls at a social club along the Amazon to join them on a fishing boat, where the girls were coerced into sex acts and paid.
The Amazon River in Brazil is a particularly attractive area for fishing enthusiasts because it is a home to a hard-fighting species called the peacock bass.