Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt, who pleaded guilty yesterday to four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child, was sentenced to 10 years probation today. Levitt could have received a sentence of 40 years in prison.
Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt
Levitt Gets 10 Years Probation, Must Register As Sex Offender
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt, who pleaded guilty yesterday to four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child, was sentenced to 10 years probation today, the Boston Globe reported. Levitt could have received a sentence of 40 years in prison.
Even though he will serve no prison time, Levitt is mandated to register as a sex offender.
He is also barred from having unsupervised contact with children who younger than 17-years-old.
Levitt admitted to sexually abusing three boys in 1975-76 when he was teaching at Maimonides day school in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Although he had just pleaded guilty to the crimes a day earlier, the 66-year-old Levitt reportedly shook his head in disagreement today while two of his victims read aloud impact statements in court.
Superior Court Judge Geraldine Hines disregarded Levitt’s reaction to his victims and imposed the light no-prison sentence, despite a request from prosecutors to impose a sentence of 2 1/2 years.
Hines declined to honor that request, instead telling the court that she would sentence Levitt according to a plea agreement Levitt’s defense attorney had negotiated with prosecutors last fall – an agreement Levitt walked away from.
Instead, Levitt opted to go to trial, changing his mind only as that trial was about to begin yesterday.
“He should have served jail time,” 49-year-old Michael Brecher, one of Levitt’s victims, told the Globe.
Brecher and the other two victims were sixth grade students at Maimonides when the sexual assaults took place.
Levitt left the state in 1980, moving to Philadelphia. He was later charged there with molesting three boys.
In the first case, Levitt was found not guilty.
In the second case, he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 5 years probation.
Charges in the third case were dropped.
Levitt was a part of the Chabad community in North East Philadelphia for much of that time, and suspicions about Levitt’s alleged misconduct with other boys were brought to the head of Chabad there, Rabbi Avraham Shemtov.
Shemtov now also heads Chabad’s presence in Washington, D.C. and is the number two Chabad leader worldwide.
Shemtov dismissed the allegations as rumors and did not report Levitt to police or child services.
One of those so-called rumors involved Levitt abusing a boy in the washroom of Shemtov’s synagogue.
Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who has repeatedly sued the Boston Archdiocese of the Catholic Church for cases involving sexual abuse by priests, told reporters today that he will begin the process of filing a civil suit against Levitt and the Maimonides.