Piano teacher to children of Hollywood stars fled country as jury decided sex abuse case
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When jurors returned to a West L.A.courtroom to deliver their verdict in a child sex abuse case earlier this month, one key person was missing: the defendant.
John Kaleel — a veteran piano teacher who has given lessons to the families of several Hollywood power players — faced allegations that he sexually abused one of his students in 2013.Kaleel, 69, pleaded no contest in 2016 to committing a lewd act with a teenage student, but later fought to have the plea overturned after realizing the felony conviction would be grounds for deportation to his native Australia.
L.A.County prosecutors then retried him and, while the case was pending, he was released on his own recognizance.
On Oct.8 — the same day jurors in the Airport Courthouse found him guilty of five counts of sexual abuse — Kaleel slipped out of the country, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and court records.
The Sheriff’s Department did not say where they believed Kaleel had fled to.Court records show prosecutors filed an application to seek an “Extradition/Fugitive Hardcopy Warrant,” but it contained no details about how he absconded and a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to answer questions.
Kaleel’s attorney, Kate Hardie, said she last saw her client when she drove him home from court on Oct.7, the day before the verdict was handed down, and has had no contact with him since.
Kaleel has been a lawful permanent resident of the U.S.since the 1980s, according to Hardie.
Attempts by The Times to contact Kaleel were unsuccessful.A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to discuss what steps it would take to get Kaleel back in custody in Los Angeles.
Hardie said her client faces at least a decade in state prison at sentencing.Hardie accused the district attorney’s office of carrying out a “vindictive prosecut...