Christie Blatchford: Child porn guilty plea caps Ontario scholar’s stunning fall from grace

Benjamin Levin a former Ontario deputy minister of education and a former
professor at University of Toronto

In the small and cloistered world of education, there may have been no bigger deal than Benjamin Levin — scholar, professor at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, former deputy education minister for both Ontario and Manitoba, part of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s transition team, lecturer who travelled the world.

Tuesday, he shrank within his nice grey suit, his head sometimes in his hands, as he pleaded guilty to three child-pornography offences, another stage done in an altogether stunning fall from grace.

Within hours, Ontario Court Justice Heather McArthur formally convicted Levin of making written child pornography (he wrote a story detailing the violent sex assault of a 16-year-old), making available child pornography and, the most startling charge, counselling a person to commit sexual assault upon a child.  (more...)

Christie Blatchford: Child porn guilty plea caps Ontario scholar’s stunning fall from grace