Steven Schacter, a former teacher at several Toronto-area Jewish day schools, has been sentenced to six months in prison for possessing child pornography.

He was also sentenced to three years’ probation, which will include a long list of restrictions on Internet use, possession of electronic storage devices and contact with minors.

Schacter was found guilty last May of one count of possessing child pornography. He had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The kippah-clad Schacter, 58, showed no emotion when the sentenced was imposed on March 25, or any when he was led away from court with his hands cuffed behind his back. He smiled as distraught loved ones hugged and kissed him.

Of the dozens of photographs seized by police, 37 were found to meet the legal definition of child pornography, said Judge Susan Chapman of the Ontario Court of Justice, while handing down the sentence.

Even though the images did not depict nudity or sexual acts, they were “clearly sexually exploitive of the children in them,” Chapman stated.

At his sentencing hearing in February, Schacter’s lawyer, Joseph Kappy, argued that the images before the court were “on the edge of criminality,” were “readily available” online and did not pose a risk to children.

He said Schacter “has been expelled from his community.”

The Crown had asked for a sentence of 12 months in jail, while Kappy requested a conditional sentence of three to six months, saying that his client “was not the worst offender” and is “timid.”

READ: STEPHEN SCHACTER FOUND GUILTY OF COMMITTING SEXUAL OFFENCES AGAINST YOUNG BOYS

Schacter did not testify at his trial, but spoke at his sentencing hearing. He said he was “extremely, remarkably remorseful” and “never intended to harm anyone, especially children. I made it my life’s work to help children.”

“I now realize I put children in harm’s way,” he said, adding that “it won’t happen again.”

At his trial, the court heard that Schacter had viewed images on a public computer at the Lawrence Square Employment & Social Services centre in Toronto, but that he fled before police arrived. He was arrested in December 2015.

The judge noted that Schacter was so immersed in viewing the images “that it took him some time to notice four or five staff gathering around him.” She said the images were “brazenly viewed in public,” which was “deeply upsetting to members of the public.”

Chapman rejected Kappy’s argument that Schacter was simply a “collector of many things, including the images of young boys that made him nostalgic.”

She found that Schacter possessed the images for “their obvious and evident purpose, mainly, the sexual one.”

Schacter was a teacher at Eitz Chaim Schools between 1986 and 2004. He also helped students with their work in the school’s library.

He was an office administrator, student supervisor and supply teacher at United Synagogue Day School (now Robbins Hebrew Academy) from 2004 to 2006.

He was also a substitute teacher at Yeshiva Yesodei HaTorah, an all-boys Orthodox Jewish school that one witness at Schacter’s trial attended.

Chapman noted that none of those schools are on Schacter’s current résumé. She said he’s no longer working as a teacher and that he is in “deep denial” about the gravity of his actions.

The judge discounted the testimony of a psychologist who said that Schacter was simply “naive and socially inadequate,” and that being a “compulsive collector” made him “feel good.”

Chapman also dismissed letters of support for Schacter, including two received from rabbis, saying they were written prior to his conviction and addressed only some of the allegations.

The judge did, however, note that Schacter has “suffered greatly. This is a hard fall from grace for Mr. Schacter. He has lost support from many people in the community.”

Separately, Schacter is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty last November of three counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual interference and one count of gross indecency. Those offences occurred between 1982 and 2002.

The sentencing hearing on those charges is scheduled for June 7.

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