Man 'used chatrooms to groom teen girls for sex'

41-year-old charged with multiple counts of rape, sodomy and indecent assault.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Girl using laptop 370 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Girl using laptop 370
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
A 41-year-old man used internet chat software to groom children aged 11-14 to perform sex acts, often using a false identity to trick his victims into believing he was a teen girl, according to an indictment served in the Petah Tikva District Court on Sunday.
The man, who cannot be identified because of a gag order, allegedly carried out the assaults on young teenagers over an 11-year period, starting in 2001 until his arrest earlier this year.
In one of the charges, the defendant talked to one 13-year-old victim about performing a sex act with a dog.
According to the indictment, the defendant created several false identities, usually of young girls aged 14-16 named Shiri, Gali, Alona and Natalie.
In some cases, the defendant allegedly pretended to be a teenage boy named Tomer.
In most cases, the indictment said, the defendant would introduce himself over the internet as a teenager, usually a girl slightly older and more experienced than his victims.
After gaining their trust, the defendant began to sexually assault his child victims, asking them to talk about their sexual development and offering to teach them about sex, the indictment said.
Allegedly, he then sent the girls photographs of female genitalia, which in some cases he said were pictures of himself, and asked them to reciprocate by sending him photos of themselves in the nude.
The defendant asked some of his victims to masturbate and gave them explicit instructions on what to do, even sending some of the children sexually explicit videos, the indictment said.
One of the multiple charges on the indictment allegedly took place in 2009, and relates to one of the complainants, known only as Alef, who was then 13.
After using chat software to contact Alef on the internet, pretending to be a teenage girl, the defendant began to sexually harass her, talking explicitly about sex and asking Alef to perform sex acts on herself, the indictment said.
Allegedly, when the 13-year-old girl told the defendant she was “way too young” to have sex, he said she must get ready for sex and he would help her learn, at one stage telling Alef he was considering having sex with a dog, asking her if she had a pet and suggesting a sex act she might perform with it.
The indictment said that during his conversations with Alef, the defendant sent the child pornographic photographs of a lesbian sex act, and claimed that the pictures were of him and a girlfriend. At one point, the defendant allegedly convinced Alef to send him explicit photographs of herself during a video chat.
The defendant sent those photographs of Alef to other minors he assaulted, claiming that he was Alef, the indictment alleges.
The defendant is charged with multiple counts of rape, attempted rape, sodomy, attempted sodomy, indecent assault, blackmail, threats, sexual harassment and making obscene publications.
The Central District Attorney also filed a request that the defendant be remanded in custody throughout the criminal trial.