Piano teacher accused of child sex crimes tried to escape to Australia. Now he faces prison

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A piano teacher who gave lessons to the children of several Hollywood power players was sentenced Friday to nine years and four months in prison for sexually abusing a longtime student starting when the boy was 13, prosecutors said.The sentencing brought a close to a decade-long legal battle marked by several twists and turns — including a dramatic move by the defendant, John Kaleel, to flee to Australia the same day a jury found him guilty of five counts of sexual abuse.

Kaleel’s attempts to evade justice proved unsuccessful.He was arrested in Australia at the request of the U.S.

government and extradited to Los Angeles in January.“He has now learned the hard way that you can run, but you cannot hide,” L.A.County Dist.

Atty.Nathan Hochman said in a statement that month.

California John Kaleel left the U.S.earlier this month shortly before a Los Angeles jury convicted him on multiple counts of committing lewd acts with a student.The 69-year-old musician taught private lessons in Los Angeles for more than a quarter century and listed numerous A-listers in the testimonial section of his now-defunct website.

Among the stars whose children he taught were the creators of “Orange Is the New Black,” “Mad Men” and “Dexter’s Laboratory,” according to the website.Kaleel was convicted of sexually abusing one of his students from 2011 to 2013.The L.A.

County Sheriff’s Department began looking into the allegations in 2015, when a student reported that Kaleel had been treating him inappropriately for years.The boy said that Kaleel asked him to measure his penis when he was 12 years old and later convinced him that they should masturbate over FaceTime, according to court records.

In September 2013, when the boy was 15, Kaleel invited him over, they smoked marijuana together and engaged in oral sex, prosecutors said.Kaleel, an Australian national, initially pleaded ...