Filed under: News, Profiles, Race and Civil Rights
For about a decade, a Colorado man named Douglas Perlitz (pictured) kept a dirty little secret in the Pierre Tossaint Project school he founded in Cap Haitien Haiti.
He was sexually abusing boys.
And he threatened them with life on the streets if they told anyone of his crime. Thankfully, some of the boys were brave and told of their treatment.
So it was a sober Perlitz who apologized to victims in a Connecticut courtroom as a federal judge sentenced him to almost 20 years in jail this week.
Though he admitted his crimes were bad, Perlitz had the nerve to ask for a lighter sentence because of the good works he did on behalf of children in Haiti.
Perlitz gave money, food and clothing to the children and threatened to take it all away if they told anyone, so Perlitz was taking advantage of the weakest people in a broken society in order to fulfill his sick sexual desires.
The more you think about his crimes, the more inadequate his 20-year sentence sounds. Maybe life would have been a more suitable punishment.
I hope authorities aren't done looking at this case, because I'm sure there are some other folks who should be behind bars. Could Perlitz have pulled off his abuse without some other adults knowing. Maybe there are others who helped him get away with it?