Victims" Group Applauds Extradition of Former University City Man to Australia
By Robert Patrick
An advocacy group for victims of sexual abuse praised on Thursday the extradition order that will send a former University City man to Australia to face child sexual abuse charges. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called U.S. Magistrate Judge Nannette Baker’s extradition order last month a “win for victims everywhere,” and urged any victims of David Kramer to come forward to police?. Australian authorities claim ?Kramer fondled or otherwise indecently assaulted four male students, ages 10 and 11, who attended the school where Kramer taught. The abuse was alleged to have occurred from 1989-92, while Kramer was teaching at a school in St. Kilda, a Melbourne suburb. Officials charged Kramer last December, months before he was released from a Missouri prison after serving a seven-year sentence for sexual misconduct and statutory sodomy. Prosecutors said he fondled a 12-year-old boy and masturbated in front of him in an apartment in University City. Kramer pleaded guilty in 2008. Matthew Chase, one of Kramer’s lawyers, said ?Kramer vehemently denied the Australian charges. Chase faulted the Australian prosecution, saying, “Twenty-two years later, they decide to press charges. To me its just astonishing. At least from the perspective of justice for the accused.” There is also dispute over whether Kramer fled Australia, whether the school whisked him away, or whether, as Kramer says, he left because the school failed to renew his visa and Australia ordered him out. Kramer went to Israel in 1992 and spent almost a decade there before moving to the St. Louis area, Chase said. Kramer was born in the U.S. but also has Israeli citizenship. He is separated and has 11 children, according to court documents. Contact: rpatrick@post-dispatch.com
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