A glitzy piano teacher to Hollywood stars who tried to flee the country after being convicted of horrific sex crimes against a child has been handed a stiff prison sentence.
Sicko music teacher John Kaleel, 69, was hit Friday with a prison sentence of nine years and four months after a jury in October found the once-respected keyboard instructor guilty of sexually abusing a longtime student beginning when the boy was 13, prosecutors said.
Kaleel, who claimed his glamorous clientele included the offspring of the creators of hit shows “Mad Men” and “Orange Is the New Black,” had fled the country to Australia on the same day he was convicted.
The disgraced music teacher was collared again Down Under, and in January extradited back to Los Angeles at the request of the U.S. government.
The U.S. Marshals Service escorted the slippery perv back to the United States, where he was taken into custody, prosecutors said.
“He has now learned the hard way that you can run, but you cannot hide,” said L.A. District Attorney Nathan Hochman said of Kaleel in a statement that month.
A piano teacher in West Hollywood for more than two decades, Kaleel’s social media accounts showcased a flamboyant lifestyle, with the convicted pedo posing poolside in a tiny bathing suit and flexing his guns in front of the Sydney Opera House.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau began looking into the allegations against him in 2015, after a student told cops the longtime West Hollywood keyboard teacher had been acting inappropriately for years, prosecutors said.
The boy said Kaleel asked him to measure his penis when he was 12 years old and later convinced him that they should masturbate over FaceTime, according to court documents reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
When the boy was 15, Kaleel invited the boy over and the two smoked marijuana and engaged in oral sex, prosecutors said.
Kaleel, an Australian national, pleaded no contest to the sex abuse charges filed against him in 2016, hoping to receive a lenient prison sentence, according to The Times.
But the district attorney‘s office wanted a tougher sentence and decided to retry his case.
Kaleel was convicted in October of four felony counts of lewd acts upon a child age 14 or 15, and one felony count of lewd act upon a child under age 14.
“Our hearts remain with the victim who endured years of abuse by someone he trusted,” DA said of the case.
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