Attorney denies Devens facility is 'country club'

LISA REDMOND

The Sun

DEVENS -- Although the lawyer for an adopted 5-year-old Russian girl who was turned into a sex slave for pornographic photos claims the man convicted of those crimes is living in a country-club environment, complete with pingpong tables and leisurely strolls along the grounds, a spokesman for the Federal Medical Center at Devens said that is simply not true.

"I don't know where they got their information that this place is a country club," said John D. Colautti, public-affairs officer for the Federal Medical Center Devens.

Colautti said it would be fair to compare the federal facility to a state prison, not a country club.

But attorney James Marsh, who represents Masha Allen -- Mancuso's victim, told the Boston Herald that Matthew Mancuso is living in cushy comfort at the Devens facility, prompting outrage from the victim, who is now 13.

Masha was 5 when Mancuso, now 47, selected her from a videotape of Russian orphans. The wealthy and divorced engineer brought the girl back with him to Pittsburgh, where she was forced to sleep with him.

For five years, Mancuso sexually assaulted the young girl and starved her, Marsh alleges. He kept a photographic record of the hundreds of assaults, creating collectors' items for child-pornography aficionados. In February 2004, Mancuso pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania to possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

Mancuso was shipped to Devens because it has a pilot sex-offender treatment program that mandates therapy shortly after the inmate walks through the door, Colautti said.

The 1,300-inmate facility in Ayer holds all security levels -- minimum to maximum -- with a primary mission to provide long-term medical services for inmates who suffer chronic medical ailments and mental-health needs.

"It is not a country club," Colautti said.