’98 SLAY SOLVED (Perv charged in murder of boy, 12)

New York Post/Lorena Mongelli and Marsha Kranes

Robert D. DeRosario, 41, doing time for molesting a dozen teenagers, was charged yesterday withthe brutal murder of 12 year old Orlandito Rosario-Maldonado, whose decomposed body was foundburied near a Westchester parkway more than five years ago. DeRosario became a prime suspect earlyin the investigation after witnesses reported they had seen Orlandito in his apartment building onNovember 2, 1998, the day he disappeared. He was arrested soon after on charges that he hadsodomized five neighborhood boys, some of them forcibly. Additional child molestation chargesfollowed after a computer seized from his apartment linked him to the sexual abuse of another sevenboys he met in an Internet chat room. He was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after pleadingguilty to 12 counts of sodomy, sex abuse and endangering a child in July 2000. His victims rangedfrom 13 to 19 years in age.

DeRosario's computer helped authorities nab and nail other sexual predators. A police review ofhis computer records led to the arrest and conviction of eight other men who had sex with one ofDeRosario's Internet victims.

(New York)