Envoy faces more sex charges

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Prosecutors are planning to bring additional child-pornography charges against a U.S. diplomat charged with pressuring visa applicants for sex while stationed in Brazil.

Gons G. Nachman, 42, who has addresses in Alexandria and the District, was arrested last month and charged with possession of child pornography, misuse of his diplomatic passport and making false statements.

In court papers, prosecutor Ron Walutes said he expects a superseding indictment early this month that will add charges of producing child pornography — charges that carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, unlike simple possession charges, which have a maximum of 10 years and no statutory minimum.

The child-pornography charges stem from videos Mr. Nachman made of himself having sex with girls as young as 15 in Congo and Brazil, where he was stationed as a vice consul, prosecutors said. According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Nachman required his maid to film and photograph the sex.

“The facts could not be more compelling, a United States diplomat filming minors engaging in sex with him, minors from the host country, inside United States government-provided housing,” Mr. Walutes wrote in court papers seeking to keep Mr. Nachman in jail while he awaits trial.

The criminal complaint against Mr. Nachman also says he made a habit of pressuring and pursuing sexual relationships with attractive female visa applicants while stationed in Rio de Janeiro.

Two applicants interviewed by federal agents said Mr. Nachman “persistently pursued these female applicants despite his position as U.S. vice consul who was personally handling these still pending immigration visa cases.”

One of the women told agents that he “took advantage of her and he instructed her that, if questioned, she should deny knowing him personally.”

Though the accusations are spelled out in court papers, the indictment does not specifically charge him with criminal wrongdoing directly related to pressuring of visa applicants.

Mr. Nachman has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his defense attorney, public defender Geremy Kamens, has questioned aspects of the government’s case.

He said in court papers that if the government had strong evidence his client had indeed pressured visa applicants for sex, it would have brought specific charges.

If the case were strong in that regard, Mr. Kamens said, the government easily could have charged Mr. Nachman with making false statements, since he wrote out a sworn statement last year denying he had engaged in such conduct.

Mr. Walutes said last week Mr. Kamens said it is rare for the government to bring child-pornography charges in cases involving postpubescent minors.

U.S. Magistrate Judge T. Rawles Jones also drew a distinction between the conduct purported against Mr. Nachman and that in typical child-pornography charges. Judge Jones said that in Virginia, for example, sexual relations with 16-year-olds would not be a crime. Mr. Walutes countered that filming sex with anyone under age 18 is considered production of child pornography under federal law.

Nevertheless, Judge Jones upheld an earlier ruling ordering Mr. Nachman to remain in jail pending trial.

Before Mr. Nachman, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Costa Rica, joined the Foreign Service, he was a law student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was president of the Naturist Student Association. According to a 1995 article in the campus daily, Mr. Nachman led a demonstration in which he and three other nudists stripped naked in a public square.

“Nudity does not have to be sexual,” he was quoted as saying. “It is very positive, very wholesome, and very natural.”

At the detention hearing, Mr. Walutes said Mr. Nachman’s recently seized diary includes more than 180 entries documenting sexual encounters, mostly while overseas.