Cantor Gets Prison for Child Porn

A synagogue official deported from Canada after mailing child pornography to an undercover FBI agent in Southern California was sentenced in Los Angeles Monday to 15 months in federal prison.

Stuart Friedman, who served as the cantor of a synagogue in Canada, also must undergo three years of supervised release after finishing his prison term, U.S. District Judge Carlos R. Moreno said.

Friedman, 45, pleaded guilty in November to one count of distributing child pornography, which carries a maximum 15-year prison term. The judge ordered him to begin serving his sentence April 12, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Friedman, who is originally from Philadelphia, had been a synagogue cantor--the individual who leads a congregation in song--in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

In November 1996, he mailed two computer disks containing 13 images of boys having sex to an undercover FBI agent in Long Beach.

He was convicted in 1997 at Nova Scotia Provincial Court of possessing child pornography and deported to the United States.

Friedman moved to Baltimore, where he was arrested in August on the federal charge of distributing child pornography.