Posted on 02/05/2002 5:03:52 PM PST by Double Eagle Sword of Justice
One night last summer, in his bedroom in his mother's house, a pimple-faced 14-year-old and his gay, 21-year-old, live-in lover used a stolen computer to offer themselves in an Internet chat room as "whores."
Within minutes, a Virginia Military Institute history professor and former special assistant to Superintendent Josiah Bunting III named Paul Pierpaoli took an interest in them. Within hours, Pierpaoli was engaging in oral sex with the boy in an abandoned double-wide trailer in Goshen, the boy and his lover testified in Rockbridge Circuit Court on Monday.
Pierpaoli, 39, was found guilty of having carnal knowledge of a minor and soliciting sex using a computer. He faces 15 years in prison when he's sentenced May 10.
DNA testing found Pierpaoli's semen in the double-wide, and he admitted meeting the boy and his lover there and masturbating in their presence, but he denied having any sexual contact with the boy.
Three VMI professors, including a former dean who recommended Pierpaoli for his job at VMI, testified that the Korean War scholar is known for his honesty and morality.
Pierpaoli's attorney, Robert Armstrong, told Judge George E. Honts III that the case was a matter of whether to believe his client or a boy and his carnival-worker lover, who moved in a day after they met and later committed a series of burglaries together.
Honts said he found the testimony of both the victim and his boyfriend, Tim Campolito, "to be credible in the main."
The boy is not being named because The Roanoke Times does not identify the victims of sex crimes.
The victim, a smallish boy with acne wearing an oxford shirt and cargo pants who talked so softly he had to be told to speak up, said he met Campolito at a carnival near his home last summer. Campolito had hitchhiked from New York and got a job operating a ride at the carnival.
They slept together in the boy's mother's house and committed a series of burglaries in Rockbridge County. Among other things, they stole the computer they used to correspond with Pierpaoli and a telephone they used to give him directions to their rendezvous.
Both the boy and Campolito pleaded guilty to the thefts. The boy was sentenced to supervised probation. Campolito has not been sentenced. A charge of carnal knowledge of a minor against him was dropped in exchange for his guilty pleas on the burglaries.
The boy testified that Pierpaoli, using the screen name "Stevie," contacted him in a chat room for gays in the Shenandoah Valley the night of the rendezvous.
"He said he wanted a 13-year-old boy. ... I said that I was 13," the boy testified. He said he e-mailed Pierpaoli directions and asked him to call on the phone. Pierpaoli did, a total of three times, which police confirmed with phone records.
Police learned of the tryst after they arrested the boy and Campolito in connection with the burglaries. They seized Pierpaoli's office computer at VMI and found it had links to Web sites with names such as "Old Men and Young Boys," as well as the one where the boy said he offered himself as a prostitute.
Police also searched Pierpaoli's home and found printouts of three e-mails addressed to "Stevie Mark" from people called "Chase Me" and "Brown Sugar." The e-mails contained driving directions, according to testimony Monday.
Pierpaoli admitted entering the chat room, meeting up with two people who identified themselves as Michael, 18, and Tony, 21.
"They told me they were having a party, and Goshen was too far away and they might like to meet me," Pierpaoli testified. He admitted calling them to confirm directions and meeting them at the trailer.
"I deny any contact with" the victim, Pierpaoli said. He couldn't determine the boy's age from looking. "It was dark in there. ... He said 18."
As to the other e-mails police found, Pierpaoli said, "They were friends of mine I corresponded with, and I tend to save directions when I go to someone's house. I've got a whole drawer full of them, actually."
When he heard the verdict, Pierpaoli turned to look at his father with a pained look on his face. He has been living with his parents in Hilton Head, S.C., since he was suspended without pay from VMI in the fall. He remains free on bond.
Wow, there are a whole lot of people that are going to go to jail!
... Within minutes, a Virginia Military Institute history professor ...Love will find a way.
I condone neither, but when it comes to the legal ramifications there is a difference.
Back in the Old Corps, the faggot would not have been tolerated anywere on Post.
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