Haitian Cops Capture U.S. Child Molester

Associated Press, 31 August 2003

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)—Haitian police captured an American convicted of child molestation who violated parole and entered the Caribbean nation with fraudulent documents, the U.S. Embassy said Sunday.

Mario Tony Leyva, 57, was captured Saturday afternoon outside St. Marc and was incarcerated in the national penitentiary in the capital, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Judith Trunzo said.

A group of Haitians recognized Leyva from a photograph the U.S. Embassy published in the local papers and showed on television. Residents tied him up and then called the Haitian police.

He was expected to be flown back to the United States on Tuesday.

Leyva, a self-ordained evangelist minister, traveled the eastern United States and Haiti in the l980s, conducting tent revivals.

He convinced parents to allow their young sons to travel with him on tours, during which he sexually assaulted the boys and sold some of them off as prostitutes, according to court documents. It is not known whether Leyva is suspected of abusing children in Haiti.

Leyva, a Cuban-American, was arrested in 1988 in Roanoke, Va., and pleaded guilty to molesting more than 100 boys in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Ohio and Indiana.

He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and interstate transportation of minors for prostitution.

After serving 11 years of a 20-year prison term, he was released from Virginia state prison on parole in April 2002, but last month he fled the Roanoke area, where he was required to live under supervision until 2008.