First there was Benjamin D. Keylin, executor director of Mercer Island's Youth Theater Northwest, who had sex with teenage girls.
Then there was William A. Hoke, an IT guy at the Seattle Children's Theater, who kept an enormous collection of kiddie porn.
Now it's Michael Gershowitz, the head honcho of Michael Gershowitz Productions, accused of being an absolute creepshow: sexually assaulting a kid at a bus stop, following him around Bellevue, and having a stash of child porn—that he may have made—inside his car. From the PI:
Per the boy's account, he was waiting at the stop for a bus back to Seattle when Gershowitz approached him. Both realized no bus was coming and Gershowitz began touching the boy, attempting to reach down his pants.The boy began walking away, followed by Gershowitz to a convenience store, the detective told the court. The teen attempted to speak to a cab driver before Gershowitz returned with soda and candy, but the driver left before he had a chance.
According to the report, the boy said he convinced Gershowitz to walk to the freeway because he knew the police would come if they were seen there.
In the car, the boy told police, Gershowitz handed him a business card with his phone number and e-mail, asking that he e-mail him "so he could put (him) in one of his movies."
"He stated he was so upset he wanted to physically hurt Gershowitz but didn't want to get in trouble," Moate said in court documents, recalling the boy's statements to the trooper. "He knew telling the officer was the right thing to do."
Ugh. But good on the kid for figuring out how to find a cop in a terrible situation.
I've never heard of this Gershowitz character and his Facebook page only says he wants to take new musicals to Broadway. But it looks like the man has a Wizard of Oz fetish—he acted in an Oz adaptation (with El Vez) called Viva Oz Vegas, won an award for a musical adaptation of the novel in 2002, and produced that musical (or another Oz musical) the Market Theater last year.
This post has been updated.
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