Dr. Michael Mizrachy, arrested since February 2021.
Photo: Broward County Sheriff’s Office/Courtesy
A pediatrician from Broward County, Florida, was sentenced to eight years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to possessing images of child pornography on his computer.
Dr. Michael Mizrachy, 50, was charged with possessing a video of a 12-year-old girl engaging in “sexually explicit conduct” with an adult male, according to the indictment and other court records.
The pediatrician was arrested in February 2021 by federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations while appearing for his state case in Broward Circuit Court on charges of possession of sexual acts by a child and one count of using a computer to solicit a child to commit an illegal act.
Mizrachy, who has remained in custody since his arrest, faced up to 20 years in prison on the child pornography charge alone. After learning of his sentence, Richard Merlino, Mizrachy’s attorney, assured that his client was deeply sorry, apologizing in court.
Merlino argued that his client should receive a sentence of time served in custody until now, but District Judge Aileen Cannon denied the request Thursday in federal court in Fort Pierce.
Aside from imprisonment, the judge ruled that Mizrachy will be placed on supervised release for 15 years after serving his sentence. You will also be registered as a sex offender in the state of Florida.
The attorney noted in a statement that the pediatrician he gave up his Florida medical license, lost his career, got divorced and lost his reputation because of the criminal process. He further noted that there was no evidence that he proactively engaged in communications seeking to meet or entice minors to engage in any actual physical sexual conduct.
Merlino added that his client did not possess the stereotypical high volume of child pornography typically seen in these cases, arguing that Mizrachy was charged with only the description set forth in a single short video.
The investigation began in the summer of 2020, when the Broward County Sheriff’s Office received a tip that brought detectives closer to Mizrachywhose experience as a doctor was 20 years.
The track managed to register a search warrant to his email account in Yahoo. Investigators with the Department of Internet Crimes Against Children found a video on the account that featured child pornography, as described in the tip.
With information from Miami Herald
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