First alleged pedophile indicted after police sting

57-year-old Jerusalem man indicted for attempted sexual harassment, attempted sodomy against boy.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Man on computer 390 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Man on computer 390
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
The Central District Attorney filed an indictment on Thursday charging a 57-year-old Jerusalem man with a string of pedophilia offenses.
A court-imposed gag order prevents publication of the name of the defendant, who is referred to only as “G.”
The charges against G.
include counts of attempted sexual harassment against an underage boy, and attempted sodomy under the circumstances of rape.
Alongside the indictment, the district attorney also filed a request that G. be remanded in custody throughout the legal proceedings against him, and that the court rescind the gag order.
The indictment is the first to be filed after police arrested 27 suspected pedophiles earlier this month, in what was the largest operation against sex offenders in Israel to date.
The police said they carried out the sting as part of an ongoing war against pedophilia offenses, including grooming and assaulting minors using Internet chat software.
As part of the operation, police agents posed as children and talked to suspects over a chat service offered by the Walla! website, and also via the Microsoft Messenger instant messaging software.
Police agents also operated a phone line on which agents posing as children would take calls from suspects who telephoned to set up sexual encounters with minors.
The indictment includes transcripts of chat conversations that G. allegedly conducted with a police agent, whom he believed to be a 12- year-old boy. The conversations include blatant and sometimes graphic sexual content.
According to the indictment, on May 29 G. began chatting over the Walla! website with a police agent, “M.,” who was posing as a 12-yearold boy with username “Idan12.”
G., who logged onto the site under the name “Seeking a Young Boy,” told Idan12 that he wanted to meet, and asked to continue the chat via Microsoft’s instant messaging service, the indictment said. Allegedly, G. gave Idan12 his email address to facilitate contact.
The police agent, M., later contacted G. via Messenger, again posing as the same 12- year-old boy, and asked G.
what sort of things he liked to do, according to the indictment.
At this stage in the conversation, G. introduced sexual subjects, telling Idan12 that he had engaged in sexual intercourse at age 12 and had enjoyed it, the indictment said.
The chat transcripts listed in the indictment include descriptions of the various sexual acts G. told Idan12 he liked to perform with children.
During that first chat, G.
allegedly gave his telephone number, so that he could arrange to meet Idan12.
Sometime later, on July 25, the police agent posed as a 12-year-old boy named Idan and contacted G. via Messenger.
The conversation once again turned to sexual matters and this time, G. persuaded Idan to set up a meeting, again giving his telephone number before discussing in graphic sexual detail what would happen during the meeting, the indictment said.
The police agent gave G. a telephone number, and in conversations during that day G. arranged to meet with Idan, whom he believed was a 12-year-old boy, in a residential building in Yavne.
G. entered the building at the address Idan had supplied, and went to the floor on which Idan said he lived, the indictment said, and where he had agreed that he would engage in a sexual encounter with a minor.
Police surprised and arrested G. at the scene.
At the time of his arrest, the indictment said, G. was also in possession of obscene images of children on his personal computer.
The district attorney is expected to file additional charges against more of the suspects in the upcoming days. Only six are still remanded in custody, including several who are suspected of actual physical harm against minors.
Yaakov Lappin contributed to this report.