Trial date reset for Ukrainian national charged with child sex crimes
March 10 trial date vacated for Alexander V. Bantov, 59, who will return in July for pretrial proceedings
A Solano County Superior Court judge reshuffled pretrial proceedings and a jury trial date for 59-yearold Ukrainian national accused in 2019 of child sex abuse and possessing child pornography.
Alexander Vitaly Bantov of San Francisco was scheduled to appear March 10 for a jury trial in Department 9, but Judge Carlos Gutierrez ordered him instead to return for a trial readiness conference at 8:30 a.m. July 9; for a trial management conference at 8:30 a.m. July 16; and at 9 a.m. July 21 for a jury trial in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
After Bantov was held to answer and waived his right to a preliminary hearing in December 2019, Gutierrez ruled there was enough evidence to schedule pretrial proceedings against Bantov, a permanent U.S. resident who formerly lived in Canada.
Bantov, who remains in Solano County Jail custody, is charged with two counts of sex acts with a child 10 years old or younger; seven counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child; and one count of possessing pornographic images of a child.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. If found guilty of all of them, Bantov could possibly spend the rest of his life in prison.
Bantov’s last attorney of record is Patrick E. Clancy, and Deputy District Attorney Shelly Moore has led the prosecution, according to court records.
During a proceeding in 2019, Moore challenged the defendant’s claim he could not afford a private attorney because, she said, Bantov owned a home in San Francisco likely worth more than $1 million.
During that same earlier proceeding, Bantov’s attorney at the time, John D. Forsyth of San Francisco, argued for release of his client from jail, with bail, citing his client’s high blood pressure; lack of a prior criminal record; ownership of the San Francisco home; and his responsibility for the caring of his elderly father in San Francisco.
Additionally, Forsyth said Bantov has had no additional contact with the victims since his mid-September 2019 arrest in San Francisco by Vallejo police officers and possessed a “green card,” a permit allowing a foreign national to live and work permanently in the United States.
At a 2019 jail arraignment, Moore told Commissioner Bryan J. Kim that police investigators advised a San Francisco neighbor of Bantov’s said the defendant had been trying to “sell his home for cash” and, therefore, may be a flight risk.
Kim denied Forsyth’s request for bail.
The mid-September arrest was not the first time Bantov was placed into custody in the case.
Court records indicate he was first arrested on Aug. 31 after Vallejo police received a report at about 12:09 p.m. of a man fondling a minor inside the IHOP restaurant, at 114 Plaza Drive, in Vallejo.
Officers arrested Bantov, who, at the time, was in the company of two minors he was looking after. One of the minors was the same one that Bantov allegedly was seen fondling.
An additional patron of the restaurant also reported seeing Bantov inappropriately touching the minor, police said.
He was arrested and booked into Solano County Jail on a count of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14. However, he apparently was released.
On Sept. 12, however, Vallejo detectives were able to successfully download and review the contents of Bantov’s cell phone, according to a report by the Vallejo Times-Herald.
Investigators found several images of child pornography. One of these photographs depicted Bantov involved in a lascivious act with one of the minors he was with at the IHOP, police said.
He was rearrested the same day at his San Francisco home on suspicion of child molestation and possession of child pornography.
Detectives have searched several electronic devices seized from Bantov’s residence. Additional images of child pornography have been found on those devices, police said.
A potentially drunk driver in a stolen vehicle led authorities on a merry chase Tuesday through two cities before crashing in Vacaville.
Shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, the California Highway Patrol responded to a report of a Toyota Camry whose driver was possibly under the influence of some type of substance.
Officers located the car on eastbound Interstate 80 at Abernathy Road. The driver reportedly took off, crashing near Midway Road.
The driver, later identified as Alicia Malia Maldonado, 25,of San Francisco, was arrested. A records check revealed the car was stolen, officials said.
Maldonado was booked into Solano County Jail on suspicion of DUI, possession of a stolen vehicle, driving with a suspended driver’s license and evading police.
WASHINGTON >> Rep. Eric Swalwell, who served as a House manager in Donald Trump’s last impeachment trial, filed a lawsuit Friday against the former president, his son, lawyer and a Republican congressman whose actions he charges led to January’s insurrection.
The California Democrat’s suit, filed in federal court in Washington, alleges a conspiracy to violate civil rights, along with negligence, inciting a riot and inflicting emotional distress. It follows a similar suit filed by Rep. Bennie Thompson last month in an attempt to hold the former president accountable in some way for his actions Jan. 6, following his Senate acquittal.
Swalwell charges that Trump, his son Donald Jr., along with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, had made “false and incendiary allegations of fraud and theft, and in direct response to the Defendant’s express calls for violence at the rally, a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol.”
The lawsuit spells out in
detail how the Trumps, Giuliani and Brooks spread baseless claims of election fraud, both before and after the 2020 presidential election was declared, and charges that they helped to spin up the thousands of rioters before they stormed the Capitol. Five people died as a result of the violence on Jan. 6, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer.
Trump’s spokesman Jason Miller called Swalwell a “low-life” with “no credibility.”
“Now, after failing miserably with two impeachment
hoaxes,” Swalwell is attacking “our greatest President with yet another witch hunt,” Miller said in a statement. “It’s a disgrace that a compromised Member of Congress like Swalwell still sits on the House Intelligence Committee.”
Brooks said the lawsuit was frivolous and “a meritless ploy.”
“I make no apologies whatsoever for fighting for accurate and honest elections,” he said, adding he wore the lawsuit “like a badge of courage.”
The lawsuit, through
Trump’s own words, accuses the former president of inciting the riot, using much of the same playbook used by Swalwell and others during Trump’s impeachment trial — that his lies over the election results stirred supporters into the false belief the 2020 election had been stolen, that he egged the angry mob on through his rally speech and that he did nothing when faced with the images of throngs of his supporters smashing windows at the U.S. Capitol and sending lawmakers fleeing.