Warning to readers: This story contains graphic details.

There were two very different sides to Benjamin Levin.

The version known to his family and friends was a “kind, gentle” and “treasured” man, who served as Ontario’s deputy education minister and taught and researched at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

“Mr. Levin also had a hidden, dark side,” Ontario Court Justice Heather McArthur said Friday, when she sentenced him to three years in prison for making and possessing child pornography and for counselling to commit sexual assault.

“Unbeknownst to his friends, colleagues and family, he had become deeply immersed in a deviant and depraved online world. He collected images of child pornography. He frequented chat rooms devoted to topics of incest and the sexual exploitation of children.”

Levin, 63, showed no emotion as McArthur read her 22-page reasons for sentencing in a Finch Ave. W. courtroom. Before he was led away in handcuffs, McArthur said, “I wish you good luck, sir,” to which he quickly replied, “Thank you.”

It was a stunning fall for a man one former colleague said in a letter of support was “one of the world’s most outstanding educators over the past three decades,” who worked on Premier Kathleen Wynne’s transition team in early 2013, following Dalton McGuinty’s resignation.

Levin pleaded guilty to the three charges earlier this year, saying in a statement that he was “deeply ashamed” of his actions. He had been released on $100,000 bail since his arrest in July 2013.

His sentencing hearing heard last month how Levin possessed 15 images and two short video clips that constituted child pornography, a number of which depicted children in bondage. There were photos of children having sexual contact with each other, a young girl being penetrated by a woman wearing a strap-on dildo and another girl being penetrated by a man.

“Having viewed the images, I can say without hesitation that the gravity of the offences committed by Mr. Levin is serious,” McArthur said.

His foray into the online realm of child pornography put Levin on the radar of three undercover officers.

An image Levin sent to one of the officers was of a bound girl with a gag in her mouth, a leash hanging down her body and a woman standing over her, writing “mmm, so hot to imagine a mother doing that to her girl to please her lover.” In another instance, he sent her a story he wrote about the violent sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl.

He told two undercover officers posing online as mothers with young girls that he and his wife had been sexually active with their own three daughters. Levin told one officer that “he hoped his daughters would ‘share’ their own children with him and his wife,” McArthur wrote.

The judge said there is no evidence that Levin actually sexually abused a child. His wife of 36 years and his daughters wrote him letters of support.

In conversations with Toronto police Det.-Const. Janelle Blackadar, who was posing as a mother sexually attracted to her 8-year-old daughter, Levin provided instructions “on how to get the young girl ‘used’ to sex.”

“He encouraged her to continually sexually assault her on a regular basis,” McArthur wrote. “He also instructed her to spank her daughter, emphasizing that it was important to make the child cry. He asked the ‘mother’ if she would hurt her child to ‘please’ him.”

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“Mr. Levin knew that the person he was chatting with might be real, and that an actual, 8-year-old girl could be repeatedly sexually assaulted at his direction,” McArthur wrote. “He didn’t care. Mr. Levin recklessly pursued his own selfish, sexual urges, all the while knowing an innocent young child could be abused as a result.”

The Crown had requested a sentence of three-and-a-half years, while the defence asked for two years. In handing down three consecutive sentences for the offences, McArthur said she found Levin’s moral blameworthiness particularly high, given his background in education.

“If there are offenders that are out there, if they’re doing things online such as these offences, and certainly if they’re physically, sexually abusing children, I hope everybody knows that we will stop at nothing to make sure that they are arrested and victims are saved,” Blackadar told reporters after the sentencing. “That’s what we do.”

For the five years following his release from prison, Levin will be prohibited from being near locations where children under 16 are present, unless he is under the supervision of an adult over 21 who is aware of his convictions. Levin may only use the Internet for education and employment purposes, or under the supervision of an adult, McArthur ordered.