Retired Special Education Teacher Sentenced for Traveling Overseas to Sexually Abuse Children

A Pennsylvania man was sentenced today to 35 years in prison for traveling to the Philippines to engage in sex with children as young as 12 years old.

According to court documents, between 2016 and 2019, Craig Alex Levin, 67, of King of Prussia, was a retired special education teacher who traveled to the Philippines nine times, each time for the purpose of engaging in sex with disadvantaged minors who, by Levin’s own words, were hungry or needed money for medicine for family members. In May 2019, the Philippine National Police arrested Levin as he was about to enter the elevator at his hotel with a 15-year-old girl. Upon search of his hotel room, police located several notebooks containing the names and ages of hundreds of girls, whom he rated based on several categories, including age. Only girls under the age of 18 received a top score of 10. There were multiple children as young as 12 listed in the notebooks.

In June 2022, Levin pleaded guilty to six counts charging him with foreign travel to engage in sex with a minor, attempted sex trafficking of a minor, and distribution and transportation of child pornography. 

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division made the announcement.

The FBI and Philippine National Police investigated the case.

Trial Attorney Austin M. Berry of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania prosecuted the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs assisted with securing evidence from the Philippines, including through mutual legal assistance requests.

This case is brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.