KOP Man, Ex-Teacher Went Overseas For Sex With Minors: Feds

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA — A former high school teacher and Montgomery County resident has been federally charged after authorities said he traveled to the Philippines to have sex with children.

Craig Alex Levin, 65, of King of Prussia, was arrested back in July 2019, and charges against him were announced back in Feb. 2020, when a grand jury indictment was unsealed. Additional charges against him in federal court were announced recently, including numerous sex trafficking charges.

Levin was previously detained in the Philippines but was deported back to the United States in August 2020, where has been held in federal detention since that time.

Officials said Levin used the Internet to track down numerous victims, and then coerced the children into having sex him, authorities said.

Levin, a retired special education teacher for who worked at Lower Merion and Harriton high schools until 2007, created and maintained Facebook accounts for that purpose, the U.S. Attorney's Office alleges.

Officials said Levin traveled to the Philippines nine separate times, from Aug. 29, 2016 to May 8, 2019.

"Craig Levin felt safe in the Philippines," Tara A. McMahon, acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Philadelphia Division, said in a statement. "If Mr. Levin thought no one in the U.S. would know or care about the abuse because it took place on the other side of the world, he was badly mistaken."

The charges against Levin include nine counts of interstate and foreign travel for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, two counts of sex trafficking of a minor, one count of use of an interstate commerce facility to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity, two counts of distribution of child pornography, one count of transfer of obscene material to a minor, and one count of transportation of child pornography.

If found guilty, Levin faces a maximum possible sentence of lifetime imprisonment with a mandatory minimum of ten years behind bars.

With reporting from Patch correspondent Max Bennett