By Raphael Satter
(Reuters) -An Israeli official accused of trying to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex outside Las Vegas has been ordered to appear via video link next week after he missed his arraignment hearing on Wednesday, local media reported.
Tom Alexandrovich, a senior cybersecurity official with the Israeli government, was one of eight people arrested as part of a multi-week operation by Nevada and federal authorities targeting “child sex predators,” according to an August 15 statement from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
He was due to be at a court in Henderson, just outside Las Vegas, on Wednesday for a felony arraignment hearing, according to court records.
Local media, including the Las Vegas Review-Journal and local news station KLAS-TV, said he skipped the hearing. The Review-Journal quoted his lawyers as saying they had agreed with the district attorney’s office that Alexandrovich did not have to appear in person.
The judge was quoted by the newspaper as saying the district attorney’s office had no authority to make that agreement and ordered his appearance next week. The outlets said Alexandrovich’s lawyers arranged for him to appear remotely via Zoom.
Messages left by Reuters with the district attorney’s office were not returned. The court docket showed that a new arraignment hearing had been set for September 3. Alexandrovich’s lawyers said in an email that their client “will appear by Zoom as permitted by the Court.” Attempts to reach Alexandrovich have been unsuccessful.
Alexandrovich was arrested in Henderson after arranging to meet a decoy posing as a teenage girl, according to a police report cited by local media. He quickly posted bail and returned to Israel, drawing international scrutiny and raising questions over whether the U.S. or Israeli governments had exerted any pressure to speed his release.
In comments to the local media, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, whose office has jurisdiction over Las Vegas and Henderson, called the bail conditions “standard” and said there had been no special treatment. The U.S. State Department has said the American government had no involvement in the case.
(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Richard Chang and Diane Craft)
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