WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A Boca Raton rabbi had sex with a 14-year-old boy and used the Internet to set up meetings with dozens of other male teen-agers, federal prosecutors said.
Jerrold Levy, 58, also kept detailed descriptions of at least 30 youths, noting the boys' sexual experiences, stories he had told them about himself and if they were circumcised, prosecutors told U.S. Magistrate Ann Vitunac on Monday. They said Levy used e-mail and Internet chat rooms to try to get the boys to meet him for sex.
Investigators found the notes and other information on computer disks at Levy's home. They said they used the data to track down a 14-year-old Wellington boy who confirmed having sex with Levy in the back seat of the rabbi's car in February.
Levy was arrested Sunday and charged with two federal counts of soliciting sex from a minor over the Internet and possession of child pornography. Prosecutor Lothrop Morris asked Vitunac to keep Levy in jail, saying the rabbi recently tried to commit suicide and posed a threat to others.
Ed Shohat, the rabbi's attorney, told the judge that his client should be enrolled in a psychiatric clinic and not kept behind bars. Vitunac ordered Levy to remain in jail until Shohat submits a plan for treatment in a secured facility.
Last month, Levy was charged with one count of soliciting sex from a minor online after the parents of a teen-age boy told police that Levy sent sexually explicit e-mails to their son. The boy's father created an alternate screen name on America Online, posed as a teen himself and lured the rabbi to restaurant.
The man never met Levy but gave Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies the license plate number on the rabbi's car. Detectives then assumed the alternate screen name, got Levy to meet them at a library and arrested him there.
Levy resigned his post as associate rabbi at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton after his first arrest. Police in Missouri said Levy pleaded guilty in 1984 to a third-degree sexual abuse charge for making an advance on an undercover officer.