Three year sentence brings sad, sickening end to onetime education superstar

Ben Levin, former Ontario Deputy Education Minister pleaded guilty to
child pornography charges earlier this spring.

It is a common enough scene in the criminal courts, and not without its own special heartbreak.

An accused person, the long judicial process over at last and no more stalling possible, is formally sentenced, and as he is led off to jail, hands cuffed behind his back, he scans the seats for final glimpses of familiar faces and the world as he once knew it.

But Friday, at a suburban Toronto courthouse located in a strip mall, the handcuffed man was one of Canadian education’s highest flyers and biggest stars and the exit from courtroom 304 was the denouement to an unprecedented fall from grace.

Ben Levin, a former deputy education minister in two provinces, former member of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s transition team and a global expert in childhood learning, was sentenced to three years in prison Friday by Ontario Court Judge Heather McArthur.  (more...)

Three year sentence brings sad, sickening end to onetime education superstar