Jewish day school sex abuser charged, appears in court

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) – An American citizen who is accused of child sex abuse at an Orthodox Jewish school in Australia appeared in court.

David Kramer, 52, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court Monday after he was surrendered by U.S. authorities last week.

Upon his arrival in Australia, Kramer was arrested and charged with 10 counts of indecent assault and two counts of indecent acts with a child under the age of 16.

The incidents are alleged to have taken place at Yeshivah College, a Chabad-run school, between 1989 and 1992.

Kramer was not required to enter a plea in court. He did not speak and did apply for bail, according to local media reports. He was remanded into custody until Jan.18.

As he left the court, Manny Waks, a spokesperson for alleged Jewish victims of child sex abuse, shouted from the gallery: “Welcome back to Australia, Rabbi Kramer.” Waks apologized to the court for heckling, local media reported.

Kramer, who was jailed in 2008 for sodomizing a 12-year-old boy at a synagogue in Missouri, is one of three men embroiled in child sex abuse scandals inside the Jewish community. David Cyprys, who also worked at Yeshivah College, will stand trial next July on 41 counts of alleged child sex crimes, and a third man, whose name has been suppressed, will also face court on more than 20 counts of child sex abuse against several victims, some of them Jewish girls during an overseas trip with a Jewish organization about a decade ago.
 

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