BishopAccountability.org
	Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt Balks at Plea Deal in Sex Abuse Case By Michael Rezendes and Scott Allen Boston Globe December 14, 2011 http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/12/rabbi-stanley-levitt-balks-plea-deal-sex-abuse-case/YqunmLIdSst6um3qVOgSdK/index.html A plea deal to resolve sex abuse charges at a prestigious Jewish day school collapsed at the last minute today when Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt decided that he would not plead guilty to charges that he molested sixth-graders in the 1970s and instead would take his case before a jury. Three alleged victims of Rabbi Levitt had been informed by Suffolk County prosecutors that Levitt was expected to plead guilty to four counts of indecent assault and battery on them when they were students at the Maimonides School in Brookline. But when Levitt appeared in Suffolk Superior Court this morning, his attorney informed the court that the rabbi would not plead guilty after all, prompting criticism from Judge Carol S. Ball for not letting the alleged victims know ahead of time. "I would have hoped you or your client would have let these people know about the change before traveling to Boston for this event," Ball said to Levitt's attorney Scott Curtis. "It's like adding insult to injury." Asked outside the courtroom if he had been discourteous to victims of sexual abuse, Levitt replied, "I am the only victim here." Levitt, a former religious studies teacher at the Maimonides, was indicted by a Suffolk grand jury two years ago after one of his students, Michael Brecher, told Suffolk prosecutors that Levitt molested him when he was an 11-year-old patient at Children's Hospital Boston, and a second student said Levitt abused him in the shower of his Brighton home. Under the plea deal, Levitt would have admitted that he molested three boys during the 1975-76 school year. He would have served no jail time under the deal, victims were told, but he would have received probation and been required to meet other conditions such as treatment for sex offenders. Attorney Curtis defended his client's change of heart, saying, "He thinks he's innocent. I think he's innocent. We'll let a jury decide." Mitchell Garabedian, Brecher's attorney, said his client is not giving up either. "He wants to go to trial. He will testify. He is a brave man." Contact: allen@globe.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.