FORT LAUDERDALE. Fla. – Broward County Judge Michael Rothschild ruled today that a key witness in the horrific sex crimes case of millionaire developer Louis Bianculli -- his ex-wife Kim Bianculli -- will soon have to answer some tough questions from prosecutors.
"The questions are there for the sole purpose of intimidating Kim Bianculli," said her attorney, Larry Schweiker, who wasn't pleased with the ruling. "(Prosecutors) threatened her with perjury and now the questions are going along the same lines of that."
Kim Bianculli, who is living her ex-husband's waterfront mansion while he awaits trial on charges that he routinely knocked his former stepdaughter out with chloroform and sexually abused her beginning when she was 12, has denied under oath that she knows anything about his alleged predilection for abusing young girl.
But another of Bianculli's former alleged victims, Nancy Olson, told Local 10 News that Kim Bianculli discovered videotapes the defendant had taken of his abuse of her nearly 40 years ago when she was his 10-year-old neighbor.
"She saw what happened in those tapes," said Olson, who alleges that Bianculli's abuse occurred for seven years.
Olson said Kim Bianculli told her that she saw Louis Bianculli on tapes knocking her out with chloroform and molesting her. Today a second witness, private investigator Dan Riemer, came forward to Local 10 to refute Kim Bianculli's claim that she knew nothing about her ex-husband’s alleged sex crimes. Riemer said Kim Bianculli told him over a period of several years about her knowledge of sexual abuse of young girls by Louis Bianculli.
"She said he used chloroform to knock these girls out," said Riemer.
Riemer said that beginning more than ten years ago, Kim Bianculli confided in him about discovering videotapes her ex-husband had taken of his sexual abuse victims. He said she was frightened to tell anyone because she feared Louis Bianculli – who allegedly beat her up on at least one occasion, according to police reports – would kill her.
"I think she's, one, scared and two, paid off," said Riemer.
Audiotaped jailhouse telephone conversations revealed that Louis Bianculli, whose net worth is estimated at $30 million, told her after his arrest that he would take care of her financially.
"If I tell you you have a place to live for the rest of your life and you don't have to worry about it, I don't say that just shallow," he tells her. "I'm telling you the truth. I've been trying to take care of every little thing, you know, your air conditioning bill, I took care of that for you. You need money, I take care of that for you. I try to do everything I can considering the fact that I'm on the telephone doing all this."
He also instructed his ex-wife to be a "hostile witness" for the state and refuse to answer questions, according to court records.
"All you have to do … you say, 'Look, I'm a hostile witness, I don't want to be on the list and I don't want to testify,'" Bianculli told Kim Bianculli on the tapes. "And they'll say thank you very much and goodbye. That's all you have to do. You have nothing to say."
The date for Bianculli's sit-down with prosecutors has not yet been set.