Mexico captures U.S. sex offender on FBI wanted list

2008-06-06)
By Mica Rosenberg

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police captured a convicted U.S. sex offender on the FBI's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives, who is accused of molesting a boy in a family he befriended while in prison, authorities said on Friday.

Jon Savarino Schillaci, 36, a fugitive for almost nine years with a $100,000 bounty on his head, was arrested in the western state of Michoacan on Thursday and extradited to the United States, Mexican officials and the U.S. Embassy said.

Schillaci is suspected of being a major distributor of child pornography on the Internet, Mexican officials said. The FBI said he ran a pedophile Web site from Mexico, where he may have been living since 2003.

After tracking him to Mexico, FBI agents and Mexican police captured him in a house in the town of San Jose de Gracia. He was flown to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he faces child abuse charges, and was arraigned there on Friday.

Schillaci was first arrested in the United States in 1989, aged 17, when he and another man were caught having sex with two 11-year-old boys in Texas and filming it, according to the FBI.

After his release from prison in 1999, Schillaci went to live with a New Hampshire family who had corresponded with him when he was behind bars. Police soon afterward issued a warrant for Schillaci, accusing him of sexually abusing the family's 5-year-son.

Schillaci was also charged with possessing child pornography after police said hundreds of indecent images were found on his computer in New Hampshire.

Schillaci, who is well-educated and speaks four languages, was skilled at using computer software to distribute child pornography, an immigration official in the state of Michoacan said.

"He worked by himself. He knew a lot about computer systems. The FBI would take down one of his sites and the next day it would be up again," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

© Copyright 2008, Reuters

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