Tracking down 'Señor Tom'

Mexican activists spent years building child sex case against S.F. financier

Stephanie Salter, Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers
Chronicle librarian Lois Jermyn provided research and Rafael D. Frankel of The Chronicle Foreign Desk in Thailand also reported.

Sunday, February 16, 2003

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico -- A never-used orphanage for boys sits empty just south of this tourist town, linked to a 53-suite resort hotel by a narrow footbridge across the creek-sized Mismaloya River.

Thomas Frank White, the San Francisco multimillionaire whose money built it all - the footbridge, the Hotel Casa Iguana and Los Niños de Vallarta shelter and school - sits thousands of miles away, in a dirty, crowded cell in Bangkok Remand Prison.

Last Tuesday, White, a 68-year-old investor and stockbroker, was arrested in Bangkok and now waits for an extradition hearing. Mexican legal authorities and a Thai special prosecutor will use the court hearing to ask a Thai federal tribunal to send White to Mexico, where he has been charged with alleged child sexual abuse, child prostitution and providing drugs to minors.

Prosecutors in Mexico say their case is based on the sworn affidavits of eight poor boys, 10 to 16 years old, who said that White paid them for sex in his seaside villa near Puerto Vallarta and supplied some of them with drugs.

While the charges against White are only allegations, his arrest focuses attention on the increasing international problem of foreigners who travel to other countries for sex with underage boys and girls. Children's rights advocates estimate that 25 percent of such people are from the United States and almost all are men.

How White landed in a Thai jail is largely the result of one Mexican woman's controversial crusade to protect a segment of the population she believes is as voiceless as it is poor: Latin America's street children.

"He is a predator who picked up boys from the shore as if they were seashells," Maria Nicolasa Garcia Reynoso said about White.

For Garcia Reynoso and other advocates of children's rights in Mexico, White's apprehension is long overdue. The first warrant for his arrest, from the prosecutor general of the state of Jalisco, was issued two years ago this month. Mexican federal charges were lodged in October 2001. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a provisional arrest warrant out for him since last July.

Two months after the FBI warrant was issued, Thai law enforcement authorities say White took up residence in the resort area of Jomtien Beach in Pattaya, Thailand, about 68 miles south of Bangkok. A videotape obtained by The Chronicle shows him frolicking with boys at the beach and touring a school and shelter there that he appears to fund.

After White's arrest in Thailand last week, FBI Special Agent LaRae Quy, speaking for the bureau in San Francisco, said the FBI "is looking at several U.S. charges against Thomas White, including the production of child pornography."

SEÑOR TOM'S TRAIL

Garcia Reynoso has dogged White's footsteps since July 1999 when reports of a "Señor Tom" from San Francisco surfaced in El Sol, one of Puerto Vallarta's more sensational tabloid newspapers. The stories, which didn't mention White's last name, contained allegations about sex with children at his villa, the Casa Blanca.

Garcia Reynoso, who was doing field research on the squalor of Puerto Vallarta's street urchins, then decided to concentrate on child victims of sex abuse. She is a volunteer observer for Frente Mexicano Pro Derechos Humanos, a nongovernmental organization that has been accredited by the United Nations since 1985 for its work in human rights.

Since 1999, she has collected sworn affidavits from destitute boys she found on the public beaches and promenades of the city.

In their statements, which she eventually provided to Mexican prosecutors, the boys said that White had lured them to the Casa Blanca with promises of jobs, food, liquor and money. All of them said White used them for sex; some said he gave them drugs.

Through his attorneys in Mexico and California, White has denied the boys' charges as well as accusations in a San Francisco civil suit filed last November, in which a 20-year-old Modesto man accuses White of molesting him in San Francisco when the young man was 17.

Terming the accusations "entirely baseless" and "not credible," Juarez attorney Jose Maria Ortega Padilla said White is a victim of people "with a prejudiced agenda" against a wealthy, gay San Franciscan. The lawyer said that the child accusers "in most cases were living on the streets and addicted to drugs" and "readily adopted the stories that were presented to them" by White's enemies.

Of White, Ortega Padilla said:

"We think he's a good man. He's done many good works and helped many people,

including women and the elderly. He's opened schools, labs, an orphanage and sports clubs for street kids. In Puerto Vallarta, everyone knows him."

A Feb. 18, 2001, photograph that has been reprinted many times with stories about White in Mexican periodicals underscores Padilla's point: a smiling White is shown having a drink with Mayra Burgos, the local president of the Mexican child welfare agency, DIF, Desarrollo Integral de la Familia. DIF was to have had a role in the operation of White's orphanage and school, and Burgos' husband, Pedro Ruiz Higuera, had just taken over in January 2001 as Puerto Vallarta's new mayor.

A week later, Jalisco state prosecutors issued their warrant for White's arrest, and the local news media exploded with stories about the planned orphanage.

"Mr. White has a lot of money invested here and has been a philanthropist to the community," said Garcia Reynoso, the child advocate. "People didn't want to believe the accusations. Men like him operate like drug lords: while they're engaging in their illegal activities, they're also providing for people, building schools, homes, roads. So their supporters say, 'He can't have done this.' "


MAN OF WEALTH
Garcia Reynoso said she learned about the proposed shelter and school as early as March 2000 when a fellow human rights advocate told her that White had been granted a building permit for Mismaloya (about 8 miles south of Puerto Vallarta) and intended to establish an orphanage there.

The Mismaloya construction project was financed largely by $3.5 million in charitable contributions from the Thomas F. White Foundation of San Francisco to Los Niños de Vallarta.

According to documents on file with the California Attorney General's Office of Charitable Trusts, the contributions were for "protection of children by raising the social, cultural, intellecual (sic), artistic, sports levels, as well as social health and welfare of the children."

White founded Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. in San Francisco in 1978. Because the company and its many subsidiaries are privately held, it is difficult to estimate White's wealth. But, in addition to his millions in charitable donations, one business transaction provides a clue:

In January 1997, Dean Witter, Discover Inc. acquired Lombard Institutional Brokerage, a discount and Internet stock trading firm that White had founded in 1992 with $13,000 in venture capital. A former Lombard executive, who asked not to be named, told The Chronicle that Witter paid $70 million for their company; close to half of it went to White.

Five residential properties owned by White in San Francisco, including his primary home in the upper Haight-Ashbury, have a current market value of at least $6 million, according to comparable home sales records by the San Francisco Association of Realtors. In Mexico, a villa for sale one lot from the Casa Blanca has a $2.6 million asking price.


SAN FRANCISCO SUIT
Until White's arrest in Thailand last week, almost no one in the Bay Area knew about the charges against him in Mexico. An exception was 20-year-old Daniel Garcia of Modesto. He is suing White in San Francisco Superior Court for alleged sex abuse in White's San Francisco home while Garcia was a minor. He is also suing White's personal assistant, Nathan Lovaas, 26, a fellow Modesto resident. Garcia accuses Lovaas of procuring underage boys for White's alleged sexual exploits.

The suit accuses White of "childhood sexual abuse, sexual battery, civil conspiracy and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress." Garcia's attorneys, David Replogle of San Francisco, and John E. Hill of Oakland, filed a statement of damages with a ceiling of $100 million.

The suit claims that Garcia, when he was 17, was "given" for a night by Lovaas as a 65th birthday present to White in San Francisco. Describing evenings in White's house on Loma Vista Terrace - where alcohol was available and the garage had been transformed into a disco - Garcia told his attorneys: "It was a teenager's dream."

In a statement denouncing the Mexican charges and Garcia's suit, White's San Francisco attorney Nanci Clarence said:

"Tom White has been a prominent member of the San Francisco community for over 30 years, and his generosity to countless charitable, arts and HIV services organizations is legendary. The disturbing revelations from Mr. White's Mexican attorneys regarding the false allegations against him in that country demonstrate that his wealth and position make him a target of groundless, salacious claims brought in the hope of financial gain. We intend to show that the San Francisco lawsuit is more of the same."

According to Garcia's attorneys, the young man's lawsuit resulted in part from a meeting he had in September 2002 with San Francisco FBI agent Martha Parker, who had been told by a White associate that Garcia might be able to provide some information about White.

After Parker told Garcia about the Mexican warrants, Garcia and Replogle flew to Puerto Vallarta where they found out about Garcia Reynoso's investigation and the Mexican boys' affidavits.

Replogle said he believes his client can aid the Mexican case because Garcia was a houseguest at the Casa Blanca and one of about 75 visitors who came to Puerto Vallarta for a grand opening of the Hotel Casa Iguana over New Year's 2001.

"I want to see justice for the children of Puerto Vallarta," said Replogle. "I am a gay man, which makes what Tom White has done doubly offensive to me. This is not just a variation on being gay. It's wrong - ethically, morally, legally, every way."


WHITE'S BUSINESSES
Garcia's lawyers say they have subpoenaed and begun to depose a number of White's associates in the Bay Area, including accountants, stockbrokers, bankers and "anyone who has financial dealings with him."

Primarily under the auspices of Thomas F. White & Co. Inc. and its subsidiaries, White conducted full-service brokerage, fee-based asset management and discount brokerage since he founded his company almost 25 years ago.

Douglas Le Loy, a manager of one of those subsidiaries, CompuTEL Securities online brokerage, provided a description of the White business landscape in an Internet interview published by Stockwatch in April 2001.

"We've got a lot of different entities," said Le Loy. "It's a very, very low-key organization . . . they're kind of a venture capital company in disguise. . . . There's an Asian-Pacific division with about 60,000 accounts; there's a network of about 300 brokers that do independent contracting for the company; there's our CompuTEL division . . . there's a Russian entity; there's an offshore entity; so it's hard to put a finger on the number of accounts, but it's a fairly sizable organization from the perspective of the reach."

In June 2001 - just four months after the first Mexican arrest warrant for White was issued - Thomas F. White & Co. changed its name to Acument Securities Inc. Last year, the company went out of business.

"Our business model was financially failing," says an Acument spokesman who asked not to be identified. "In August 2002, Acument made a business decision to cease operations as a brokerage firm and transfer its accounts back to its clearing firm, U.S. Clearing Corp."

White remains president of the charitable foundation he created in his own name in 1998.

In addition to the $3.5 million it reported giving to Los Niños de Vallarta in Mexico, the foundation also has donated to such San Francisco causes as Drew College Preparatory ($205,000), the music organization Chanticleer ($25, 000), Friends of Recreation and Parks ($5,000), and the San Francisco Ballet Association ($2,000).


MEXICAN BOY'S CHARGES
The sworn affidavits of the destitute boys interviewed by Nicolasa Garcia Reynoso in Puerto Vallarta paint a less generous portrait of White as "the gringo, Señor Tom," a sexually voracious senior citizen who enticed minors to his seaside villa for lobster dinners, access to alcohol, video games and - depending on their level of cooperation - money.

Chronicle reporters took the following excerpts from eight printed transcripts, and the videotape of one of those interviews by Garcia Reynoso. Although the boys' full names are included in the affidavits, it is The Chronicle's policy not to publish the names of minors involved in cases of alleged sex abuse.

"When he filmed me, if I moved my body well, he paid me better," testified a boy, who said he was 14 when he met White.

Another, who said he was 10 when he and some friends visited the Casa Blanca, remembered White showing heterosexual pornographic films "and when we were all done, he told us that if we wanted to make more money, that we could (perform anal intercourse on) him, telling me he would give me 100 pesos. But I only did it one time, and I did it with a condom and he gave me 100 pesos. But when he did it with the other guys, he gave them 300 pesos."

One hundred pesos is equivalent to $10.

According to the affidavits collected by Garcia Reynoso and filed through a state human rights commissioner with the prosecutor general of the state of Jalisco, Mexico, the youngest of the boys was 10 at the time of the alleged sex abuse and prostitution, the oldest 16, the legal age of consent in Mexico.

Many of the boys describe a similar initial encounter: White allegedly solicited them near the Hotel Rosita, which sits between Puerto Vallarta's Malecon promenade and the popular Playa de los Muertos (Beach of the Dead). Some boys were driven to the Casa Blanca in "a white van," others said they were told to take taxis paid for by White.

One boy, who said he was 14 when he met White, gave a typical account of the villa:

"We asked if Tom was there and they said yes. We asked if we could come in and they said yes, so we took off our clothes, because that's the rule for entering that place, and they sent us to bathe in the pool. Tom got in the pool too, naked. Everyone in the house goes around naked except the guards."

Many of the Mexican boys who gave testimony said that condoms were used during anal and oral sex and that White kept a huge supply of the prophylactics. Some of the boys said they were given marijuana or cocaine.

One boy said he shared White's bed for a week, but most said they were dispatched in about an hour, then given food, access to the pool, money and transportation back to town. Some said they were paid $10 or $15 for sex, others got $80 or $100.

Some of the children recounted drinking wine, tequila, beer or other alcoholic drinks in which "a white powder" was dissolved, supposedly to help them achieve or keep erections. Most said they were videotaped by cameras in White's bedroom.

Another 14-year-old, who said he made two visits to the Casa Blanca, recounted a scene in which "Señor Tom" allegedly completed fellatio on him, then turned to two of Marcos' young friends and had sex with both of them. In the same room, a fourth companion "was playing Nintendo and wasn't with anybody."

On the first visit, the 14-year-old said, his and his companions' clothes were returned to them at the end of the evening "all washed."

Garcia Reynoso said that the boys she interviewed suffered "extreme poverty,

they are homeless or live in cardboard shantytowns." Most had come to Puerto Vallarta from other cities like Tepic or villages elsewhere in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit. One 12-year-old's occupation is listed as "chewing gum vendor."

In a videotaped interview of a boy who says he is 14, a rooster can be heard crowing nearby and several other boys appear to be living in tin shacks in a vast ravine. Curly but matted black hair sticks out of a dark blue baseball cap that the boy wears backward on his head.

Another boy testified: "Tom also wanted me to stay and live in his house because he wanted to (sodomize) me. . . . He told me that he would put me in school and buy me whatever I wanted, that he would take me to the United States."


RECANTATIONS CLAIMED
White's Mexican attorney, Jose Maria Ortega Padilla, stated that the boys were "coerced" to accuse his client of "salacious acts that he never committed. "

He also said last week that "in sworn statements to a state prosecutor, Mr. White's accusers have already recanted all of their criminal accusations against him and have affirmed that their stories were invented, since they were forced to declare against Mr. White under serious threats."

Ortega Padilla said the retractions had been filed as part of an attempt to quash the Mexican government's case, but that they could not be shared with the public.

Marco Roberto Juarez Gonzalez, who heads the Jalisco prosecutor general's office in Puerto Vallarta and is handling the White case, said he knew nothing of the recantations. If they do exist, he said Wednesday, a Mexican judge would have to decide whether they carry more weight than the boys' original statements.

Garcia Reynoso told The Chronicle she took care to videotape or audiotape all her interviews with the boys, and she did not work with anyone who could have coerced or threatened the boys. Government cooperation, including from police, was virtually nonexistent during most of the years she was investigating White, she said.

As a mound of photocopied correspondence confirms, Garcia Reynoso complained about the lack of action, especially on the state level, to everyone from the lowest city functionary to Mexico's president, Vicente Fox.

Since the assignment eight months ago of Juarez to the state prosecutor's post, Garcia Reynoso says the situation has much improved.

Mayra Burgos, the mayor's wife and local president of the child welfare agency, DIF, has joined with her husband's administration to address Puerto Vallarta's problem of vulnerable street children. A public shelter for them has been opened about 4 miles from the city.

Last autumn, a DIF-generated poster was displayed all over the city. It upset many U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Vallarta because it featured a U.S.

passport-carrying tourist and a warning that pornography and child prostitution are crimes.

"Puerto Vallarta is trying to fight off its reputation as a center for sexual tourism for children," said Bruce Harris, the executive director of Casa Alianza, a nongovernmental Costa Rican agency that aids street children in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

"Once it gets to the point where a city has a reputation, it has gotten really bad," he said. "You see it on the streets, it is very blatant, foreigners talking to kids, often homeless kids. They prey on the child's vulnerability and desperation and hunger. They offer as little as $5 for sexual favors. Out of desperation the children accept. The authorities, who are supposed to protect them, don't."

Despite the improvements, Garcia Reynoso concedes that her fight is not over.

It will now be "very difficult" to find any of the boys who testified, given their wretched living conditions, their fear and the long passage of time, she said. Mexican law does not require minors to retestify against an alleged abuser, but a judge could ask for that.

Mexico increased the penalties for child sex abuse and child prostitution last year, but the law is not retroactive. According to Juarez, the state prosecutor, if White is extradited from Thailand, brought to trial in Guadalajara and convicted, any sentence "could be decreased" because Mexican statutes tend to show mercy to senior citizens.

"The important thing is to condemn him, to publicize it, to (make it known) that this is not the paradise to be doing that," said Juarez.


U.S. REVELATION
Two days after White's arrest in Thailand, photos of him being escorted to jail appeared in Mexican and U.S. newspapers and on television. Clarence, White's San Francisco attorney, said White has been forced to sleep on a concrete floor in a "filthy" 26-by-13-foot cell with about 20 other prisoners awaiting hearings.

It is a marked contrast from a videotape obtained by The Chronicle, on which White and an unidentified male friend are shown participating in a Thai New Year's tradition at Jomtien Beach in Pattaya. Silk bags, representing all one's sins for the year, are lighted and set aloft over the sea.

White tells his friend about a black-tie dinner he had attended in the Czech Republic in September 2001. The friend sidetracks him by asking, "This was all with a sprinkling of boys among those people?" White says no.

Then he tries to retrieve his narrative, laughs and says, "So what was the point I was going to make?"

The friend jokes and says: "I don't know, but it's going to come back to young sweet boys, somehow."

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Press