Youth coach charged with dozens of sex crimes against minors

A youth handball coach from Herzliya was indicted Thursday for committing a series of sexually related offenses against minors in Israel and abroad over the last several years.

Beno Reinhorn, 35, who is married with two children, was charged with molesting underage girls via the internet by persuading them to send him indecent photos and videos of themselves, including some that involved acts considered rape and sodomy under Israeli law.

The indictment says Reinhorn sexually assaulted 28 girls aged 9-17 and four adult women via the internet, and attempted to contact dozens of other teens and girls for sexual purposes, as well as stalking others with the intention of contacting them.

State prosecutors from the cyber unit said they identified 121 victims and potential victims that Reinhorn preyed upon, often posing as a modeling agent on the popular photo sharing app Instagram.

The indictment quotes police investigators who said that Reinhorn acted “obsessively at all hours of the day and night” for a period of several years.

Prosecutors said Reinhorn had multiple accounts on numerous social networking sites, and utilized the Dark Web in a bid to cover his tracks and delete incriminating files from his computer.

He lured in teens and young girls by posing as a modeling agent who was connected to celebrities, photographers, producers and other figures in the fashion world.

After establishing a connection with his victims while “blatantly exploiting their innocence and their desire to model and become famous,” Reinhorn persuaded them to send him “content of a sexual nature to the point of carrying out acts of sodomy and rape,” the court said.

Reinhorn would also regularly contact girls outside Israel, investigators said.

Under Israeli law, persuading a minor to carry out a sex act via the internet can be considered rape or molestation even if there was no physical encounter.

At the hearing, prosecutors asked that Reinhorn be remanded until the end of the legal proceedings against him.

“It is not every day that the court comes across an everyday guy who stalks minors online,” state prosecutor Shiri Rom said. “The scope and circumstances of his actions as detailed in the indictment… indicate he clearly lacks the self-control not to act on his sexual impulses.”

Police have called the case “one of the most serious and severe incidents of pedophilia, both in terms of the severity of the offenses and the scope of the activities” that they have encountered in web-related crimes.