Australia to ask US to extradite alleged child molester

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) – Australian police plan to ask US authorities to extradite a former teacher at a Melbourne Jewish school over a child sex abuse scandal allegedly covered up by the school 20 years ago.

David Kramer fled Melbourne in the mid-1990s amid accusations that he had sexually abused boys at Yeshivah College, which houses the headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch in Melbourne, between 1989 and 1993.

Kramer, 50, went first to Israel and then to the United States, where he was jailed in 2008 after pleading guilty to molesting a 12-year-old boy at a synagogue in Missouri. He was sentenced to seven years in prison but could soon be eligible for parole.

Detective Senior Constable Lisa Metcher told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday that authorities plan to travel to the US later this month to request his extradition, The Age newspaper reported. But a police spokesperson, Sgt. Jo Stafford, told The Age that Kramer was still under investigation and “no charges have been served at this time.”

It is believed that Yeshivah College asked Kramer, then a Jewish studies teacher, to leave after teachers were made aware of the allegations of molestation, which were never reported to authorities at the time.