I might not have written about this, were it not for two paragraphs from Philly Crime Update:
Gerald Zalewski, 43, was sentenced Monday to an additional 2 to 7 years in state prison, on top of the 5 to 20-year sentence he received after pleading guilty in 2006 to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old in Montgomery County.
According to prosecutors, Zalewski fled the United States before his 2006 sentencing hearing and remained a fugitive until resurfacing in England, where he was later convicted of raping another 13-year-old in 2016.
From WPVI-TV, almost ten years ago:
Convicted child predator from Montco caught in England
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
A convicted child predator from Montgomery County placed on the FBI’s America’s Most Wanted list has been located in England after being convicted of a similar crime, authorities say.
The District Attorney’s Office says Gerald Zalewski skipped bail in April 2006 prior to his sentencing hearing.
Zalewski, now 33, was located in Lancashire, England, Wednesday after being sentenced to 12 years in jail.
“Once the defendant serves his time in England, we want him back to lock him up,” District Attorney Kevine Steele said in a statement.
Zalewski was arrested in August 2004 after police say he had several sexually explicit online chats with an officer posing as a 12-year-old. They say he arranged a meeting to have a sex with a girl who was actually an undercover detective.
During the investigation, police discovered he had previous sexual contact with a 13-year-old Bucks County girl he met online in June 2004 and additional charges were filed.
In November 2005, Zalewski pled guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and criminal attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, both first-degree felonies.
He failed to appear for his March 29, 2006, sentencing hearing and was sentenced in absentia to 5 to 20 years in state prison. New charges of flight to avoid punishment and default in required appearance were filed, which could add up to 14 years to his prison term.
Obviously, one conviction for molesting a 13-year-old girl wasn’t enough to chasten him: he molested another 13-year-old in England, and was seeking to molest another before he got caught in a sting. Who knows how many young girls he molested for which he didn’t get caught?
But here is the truly stupid part: Mr Zalewski was allowed bail, allowed to walk free after pleading guilty to two first-degree felonies in Pennsylvania, to await sentencing four months later! He was looking up to twenty years dead in the eye, and given four to five months to plan and execute an escape. How stupid would you have to be to think he wouldn’t be trying to get away? Whoever the judge in this case was, he needs to share a prison cell with Mr Zalewski.
With convictions for two first-degree felonies, why would he not have been taken straight to jail? Because he was not imprisoned immediately, at least one 13-year-old British girl was raped, and he was looking to add other victims.