Ex-Tech Executive Guilty in Teen Sex Slavery Case
Federal Jury in S.J. Convicts Ex-Patent Attorney of 11 Charges
By Howard Mintz
Originally published in the Mercury News, May 3, 2002
A former Silicon Valley executive was convicted Thursday of trying to recruit a teenage girl from Vietnam to be his sex slave, ending an unusual trial that exposed how wealthy American men can use money and influence to find young victims overseas.
After a day of deliberations, a San Jose federal jury convicted Michael Rostoker, 44, of 11 felony counts related to traveling to Vietnam to have sex with a minor and of using the Internet to induce a minor to commit various sexual acts in California.
Rostoker, a one-time high-tech executive, renowned patent lawyer, and Stanford University postdoctoral student when he was arrested, faces roughly two to four years in federal prison.
He was expressionless as the jury's verdict was read in U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte's courtroom, where Rostoker's mother wept in the gallery. Rostoker, who remains free on bail pending his sentencing in August, declined comment outside the courtroom, but his attorney, Ed Swanson, said there are "very strong grounds for appeal in this case."
Federal prosecutors said afterward that the verdict sends a strong message that law enforcement is trying to crack down on the problem of young girls being sold into sexual slavery around the world.
"Our interest in protecting minors doesn't stop at our borders," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Dave Callaway. "He's a U.S. citizen, he's subject to our laws, and our laws don't permit you to travel anywhere to have sex with a minor."
The trial turned on the basic question of the age of the girl alleged to be Rostoker's victim. The issue was crucial because Rostoker was charged under a federal law that forbids traveling to a foreign country to have sex with a minor younger than 16.
Prosecutors, armed with a birth certificate and various other documents, argued that the girl was 13 when Rostoker in 1999 arranged a deal to bring her to the United States to be his bride. Among other things, evidence showed that Rostoker paid her family more than $150,000 and arranged for falsified immigration papers to sneak her into this country.
But Rostoker mounted a vigorous defense, maintaining that he wanted to marry the girl and that she was in fact nearly 18 when they met. The girl and her mother were both flown from Vietnam to testify in support of Rostoker, with the girl telling jurors that her birth certificate was false and that she will turn 21 this summer.
Rostoker and the girl were married in an unofficial 1999 Vietnamese ceremony, which prosecutors said was not legitimate.
Members of the six-man, six-woman jury said after the verdict that they did not believe the girl or her mother. In addition, they said countless e-mails from Rostoker to the girl—many of them involving explicit sexual demands—persuaded them that he knew she was underage.
"Coming up with the guilty verdicts was based on the age," said Mia Duran, one of the jurors. "We just didn't believe it."
The verdict was the latest development in Rostoker's fall from millionaire executive to accused pedophile. Before his 1999 arrest, Rostoker was well-known in the technology and patent fields, particularly in relation to Pacific Rim issues. His credentials were outlined on a Stanford University Web site, where he was studying for a postdoctoral degree when he was arrested.
At that time, he was president and chief executive officer of now-defunct Microelectronics Research, a semiconductor subsidiary of Kawasaki Group. California Lawyer magazine identified him as one of the state's top patent attorneys.
