MIAMI _ On paper, Dale and Claudia Leary seemed the ideal couple to host foreign exchange students.
He was a charismatic tech genius, she a longtime elementary school teacher turned administrator. They lived in manicured four-bedroom Cutler Bay house. In applying to host their eighth student in 2012, they promised family dinners by the pool, trips to the mall and occasional visits to Disney World.
"Claudia and I feel that we have a lot to teach and enjoy showing students our cultural differences and encouraging them to try new things," Dale Leary wrote in his application. "One of the greatest things we like to share with our students of American life is openness."
But behind the wholesome facade lay a den of perversion. By the time Leary, 50, swallowed a lethal dose of pills in a suicide in July 2017, he had left behind a trail of shattered lives:
Two teenaged Spanish sisters, both brainwashed and talked into sexual acts _ one of them forced, on camera, to have sex with dozens of men at a South Florida swingers hotel over many months. A naive teenage relative plied with alcohol, lectured on the Bible and coerced into sex. Leary's own wife, who helped him seduce students, all while being browbeaten by her dominating husband.
Along the way, there were plenty of red flags about Leary.
He was cleared to become a foreign exchange host, despite a conviction for kidnapping and sexually attacking a woman. As far back as 2006, the FBI received a cyber tip about risque photos of child models on Leary's website. An acquaintance reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Leary seemed "to be intimate" with numerous foreign exchange students _ but a Miami-Dade police investigation in 2013 found no evidence of criminal activity.
It's been more than a year since Leary killed himself, days after he was finally arrested for sexually molesting the underage sister of a former exchange student. Some of his story has been told _ but the full extent of his abusive behavior is chronicled in newly released law-enforcement documents, civil court records and interviews with people who knew and investigated him.
"Mr. Leary was a sexual predator without a doubt," said Amy Swan, a forensic psychologist who reviewed witness statements and court documents for the Miami Herald and was not involved in the case. "He had a perfect scheme for obtaining victims by presenting himself and his wife as benevolent sponsors for foreign exchange students."
The criminal case against Leary dissolved when he killed himself. Prosecutors also dropped the case against Marta San Jose, his former Spanish exchange student who was accused of helping Leary molest her own underage sister. The larger investigation into Leary's production and dissemination of child pornography _ and possible human trafficking _ fizzled because his hard drives, computers and phones were encrypted and could not be accessed by law enforcement.
But the legal fights over Leary are not over. San Jose is suing Claudia Leary and CCI Greenheart, the Chicago-based foreign exchange placement company that allowed him to host students from overseas.
Greenheart, its coordinators and Claudia Leary claimed the lawsuit is invalid because the four-year statute of limitations has expired. San Jose's lawyers insist that the young woman, now 22, was under Leary's control and had no way to report the abuse.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Barbara Areces has so far declined to dismiss the case, and depositions will begin in February.
Neither Claudia Leary nor her lawyer responded to requests for comment from the Herald. CCI Greenheart declined to comment.
"Greenheart miserably failed our client, just as they failed many other exchange students who were entrusted in Leary's care, by their negligent and careless attitude towards Leary's criminal history," San Jose's lawyers, Jorge Viera, Timothy Barket and Karina Miralda, said in a statement. "Our client will have to live with these terrible memories for the rest of her life, but our hope is to bring her some peace at the resolution of this case."
Details of Leary's early life still remain unclear. He told friends he was adopted and was mostly raised in South Miami-Dade, graduating from Southridge High. Family members, reached by the Herald, declined to speak about Leary.
His first brush with the law came in October 1985, when he was 18 years old. Leary and a friend used a buck knife to break into a University Avenue house in Coral Gables. While ransacking the house, a man and woman came home and surprised the intruders.
Armed with a gun, Leary forced the woman into a bedroom, where he tied her up, fondled her and then masturbated atop her, according to the court file. He wound up pleading guilty to several felonies, including armed burglary, armed robbery and lewd and lascivious behavior.
Sentencing guidelines called for a term of at least 12 years in prison. But because of his age, Leary was instead sentenced to a "youthful offender" program and got 60 days in jail, plus nine years of probation. Despite the nature of his crime, he was not placed on any sex offender registry _ none existed in 1985.
He went on to a successful career working in tech-oriented marketing and advertising, touting successful campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, Siemens and Hilton. One of his claims to fame: In the late 1990s, he helped develop an early online adventure video game for Coca-Cola Cherry called "The Lost Island of Alanna," a bid to market to young people just learning to use the fledgling internet.
"He had a brilliant mind," said one former associate who asked not to be named. "He would take an idea and make a brand around it."
Leary also fancied himself a photographer _ he claimed he helped start up and run One Model Place, a website that showcases images of models. The website still thrives today, although requests for comment went unanswered.
Slender and tall, Leary studied martial arts, had a collection of Japanese swords around his house and enjoyed a nightly glass of Scotch. He married his wife, school teacher Claudia Leary, in 1993. They purchased their Cutler Bay house a decade later.
Claudia later told people that she and Leary could not have children, so getting foreign exchange students "was their alternative."
They signed up with CCI Greenheart, a well-known player among companies that arrange foreign exchange programs in the United States. Founded in 1985, the company claims it has placed nearly 300,000 participants from over 60 countries with more than 12,000 host families in the United States.
The company says hosts get in-person, in-home visits from program coordinators who "regularly communicate with our students to ensure their experience is consistent with our standards." The hosts are also subjected to "independent third-party background checks."
CCI Greenheart has refused to identify the company that did the background search on Leary, or if it turned up Leary's conviction, which was readily accessible online through Miami-Dade court clerk records.
"We are fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all participants in our programs," a spokeswoman said in a statement to the Herald. "Due to the pending litigation in this matter, we are cooperating in the judicial process and are not able to provide additional details."
The company's application did not explicitly ask if Leary _ who also identified himself as "Dalton Leary" _ had been convicted of a crime. To the question about whether anyone in the applicant's family had been convicted of a crime, Leary checked "No."
The Learys hosted at least eight exchange students over the years, and their presence did not go unnoticed by others in the couple's orbit. One relative later told police that the exchange students "would be running around in bikinis in the house" and that every year, candidates would come to the house "for a big party."
"They, like, picked from there, which is kind of creepy to me, (like) a beauty pageant," the relative told investigators.
Sometimes, the relative told police, the girls would sit on Leary's lap on the couch, snuggling with him while watching television and eating ice cream. Leary frequently held another girl's hand, even crossing the street in public.
In one photo album, later seized by police, Leary kept photos of one Danish student and Claudia, both in lingerie, sitting on his lap.
Leary also gave the girls journals _ several reviewed by detectives revealed they gushed about Leary's romance and the attention he lavished on them.
