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 News from Around Banderas Bay | August 2005 
Court Charges U.S. Man with Rape; Drops Corrupting Minors Charge
 Associated Press
| | Dirty Old Man by Jan Paulus-Maly |
Puerto Vallarta - A judge ordered a San Francisco businessman to stand trial on rape charges on Wednesday, but dismissed corruption of minors charges because the statute of limitations had run out on those counts.
Thomas White, who founded the brokerage firm Thomas White & Co. in 1978, also faces charges of underage pornography, child prostitution and providing drugs to a minor.
White's defense attorney, Jose Maria Ortega, denied the charges and said the boy White is accused of raping was a prostitute.
"There is ample proof in the trial evidence that the guy who claims to be a rape victim is a sex-seller," Ortega said.
White, who was extradited from Thailand to face charges in Mexico, is also wanted in the United States. He is being held in the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta, 400 miles northwest of Mexico City, where the abuse allegedly occurred.
Attorneys for White have denied the charges.
Mexican prosecutors have accused White with sexually abusing 14 minors - many, allegedly street children - in Puerto Vallarta. The minors were first plied with alcohol or drugs, authorities said.
White was arrested in Thailand in 2003 at the behest of Mexican officials. He owns homes in Puerto Vallarta, San Francisco and Thailand.
A U.S. indictment accuses White of frequently traveling to homes outside Bangkok, Thailand, and near Puerto Vallarta to have sex with children.
White is also accused of traveling to Prague, Czech Republic, to produce child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco.
White was indicted last summer in California on two counts of conspiring to travel overseas with the intent to have sex with children and one count of conspiracy to sexually exploit children.
Traveling overseas to have sex with children is a crime in the United States. Moreover, under an agreement between the United States and Mexico, suspects can be temporarily extradited to face trial in one country, and then be tried in the other country, before serving prison time in either. |
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