Australia Wants to Extradite Missouri Molester for Crimes There

By Robert Patrick
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
May 18, 2012

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/australia-wants-to-extradite-missouri-molester-for-crimes-there/article_f5288756-3e9f-5231-9224-55f8033e54cd.html

A man recently released from a seven-year prison term is fighting an attempt by Australia to extradite him to face allegations he abused students he taught there at least 20 years ago.

David Kramer, now 51, is due in U.S. District Court in St. Louis today for a hearing prompted by allegations involving his tenure at a school in St. Kilda, a Melbourne suburb.

Australia's extradition documents claim Kramer fondled or otherwise indecently assaulted four boys, 10 and 11, from 1989-92, both in and out of school. One former student accused him of hundreds of incidents. In December, he was charged with multiple counts of indecent assault and indecent acts.

"Mr. Kramer vehemently denies everything coming out of Australia," responded one of his lawyers here, Matthew Chase.

"They never bothered to charge him with a crime until December just past," Chase said. "Kind of makes you wonder why they never bothered. Perhaps because there really wasn't anything there."

Court documents say an outsider contacted by the school approached Kramer, who allegedly admitted 'sexually abusing the children, but indicated ... that the children had initiated the touching, and that they enjoyed it, and that no harm had been done."

Kramer was dismissed from the school, the documents say.

Chase said Kramer really departed because of an error that left him accused of overstaying his visa by eight months. He went to Israel in 1992 and spent almost a decade there before moving to the St. Louis area, Chase said.

Kramer was born in the U.S. but also has Israeli citizenship, Chase said. Court documents say Kramer is separated and has 11 children.

In 2007, St. Louis County prosecutors charged Kramer with sexual misconduct and statutory sodomy, claiming he fondled a 12-year-old boy and masturbated in front of him in an apartment in University City. Kramer pleaded guilty in 2008 and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Officials said the local episode did not involve teaching or a school.

In court filings, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Ware said that there are no grounds to release Kramer on bail, and sufficient evidence to have him extradited. A relative rarity of international extradition cases here has lawyers studying the law, Chase said.

"I can't claim to be an expert on this," he explained. "There's nobody (in St. Louis) who is an expert on this."