NORRISTOWN — A convicted sex offender captured after spending 20 years on the lam after skipping his 2006 sentencing hearing in Montgomery County Court won’t face a charge of flight to avoid apprehension due to a legal technicality, but still faces punishment on a related charge.
During a brief hearing in county court, prosecutors withdrew the felony charge of flight to avoid apprehension against Gerard Boguslaw Zalewski, 42, after reviewing Zalewski’s request to withdraw his previous guilty plea to the charge on the grounds that it was not “knowing, intelligent or voluntary” because he was not fully aware of an exception in the law that would deem the charge not applicable to his circumstances.
“The Commonwealth looked into the defendant’s claims and found that with respect to that one particular charge the actions of the original sentencing court did place the defendant into that exception so, that particular count was no longer legally valid in this case,” Assistant District Attorney Samantha L.R. Cauffman explained as she formally withdrew the charge against Zalewski during a hearing before Judge Steven T. O’Neill.
With the charge withdrawn, Zalewski, who is represented by defense lawyer Cary Hall, dropped his request to withdraw his guilty plea.
On April 21, 2025, Zalewski pleaded guilty to the charge as well as a separate felony charge of default in required appearance which also carries a possible maximum sentence of 7 years in prison. Zalewski did not seek to withdraw his guilty plea to the default in required appearance charge and Cauffman is prepared to move forward with that charge at a sentencing hearing later this month.
Zalewski, of Clinton, N.J., is already serving a 5-to-20-year state prison term he received in absentia from a Montgomery County judge in March 2006 for having sexual contact with a Bucks County girl he met online.
Zalewski was extradited from England and arrived on U.S. soil in August 2024 after serving a sentence in a British prison for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl there.
Zalewski originally was arrested on Aug. 15, 2004, after he used the internet to arrange a meeting outside the Abington Library on Old York Road with an undercover detective who he believed was a 12-year-old girl. When detectives moved in and searched Zalewski’s car they found condoms, an ice pick and a digital camera, according to the criminal complaint filed by Abington detectives.
During the course of that investigation, detectives also identified a 13-year-old Southampton, Bucks County, girl who stated she met Zalewski online. The girl told authorities Zalewski picked her up at her home and engaged in sexual activity with her in his car in a secluded area of Bucks County in June 2004, court papers indicate.
Zalewski was then arrested a second time on charges of child sexual assault in connection with the Bucks County incident.
Montgomery County prosecutors took jurisdiction of both cases and on Nov. 14, 2005, Zalewski, then 22, pleaded guilty to a charge of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse in connection with sexual contact he had with the Bucks County girl in June 2004 and to a charge of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse after he tried to arrange a sexual liaison in Abington with who he believed was a 12-year-old girl but who was an undercover detective with the Montgomery County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
At that time, Zalewski was permitted to remain free on $100,000 bail that he posted through a bonding company to await sentencing.
Judge Joseph A. Smyth also ordered Zalewski to undergo an evaluation by the Pennsylvania Sexual Offenders Assessment Board to determine if he was a sexually violent predator.
In January 2006, the state board recommended that a judge declare Zalewski a predator, setting the stage for Zalewski’s sentencing hearing.
When Zalewski didn’t show up for his March 29, 2006, sentencing hearing, Smyth sentenced him in absentia to 5 to 20 years in prison. Smyth, at that time, also issued a warrant for Zalewski’s arrest on the new charges of flight to avoid punishment and default in required appearance.
In 2006, prosecutors said Zalewski had connections to Poland and didn’t rule out that he managed to leave the U.S., despite having been required to surrender his passport to law enforcement while on bail. Authorities placed Zalewski on a number of different so-called international “watch lists.”
When he absconded, prosecutors described Zalewski as “extremely dangerous,” referring to the man who possessed an ice pick when he showed up for the meeting with the undercover detective in the Montgomery County case. County authorities worked jointly with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to track Zalewski, making the international community aware there was a warrant for his apprehension.
Local authorities eventually tracked Zalewski to England in 2016 when he was arrested for the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in Bamber Bridge, Preston in Lancashire, according to MediaNews Group reports at the time.
At the time, authorities said Zalewski groomed the 13-year-old girl over the internet and manipulated her to send him indecent images before arranging to meet her in a park in June 2016. Authorities said Zalewski subjected the British girl to sexual abuse over several hours including covering her mouth with masking tape, putting a dog collar around her neck, writing the words “rape me” on her leg and taking photos of her with his mobile phone.
According to a press release issued Dec. 6, 2016, by the Lancashire Constabulary, Zalewski pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child and appeared at Preston Crown Court and was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. British police said Zalewski had been residing in Dartford in Kent at the time of his arrest.
Montgomery County authorities then began extradition proceedings to return Zalewski to the U.S. but he couldn’t be returned until he completed his sentence in England.
