Notorius US Psychiatrist and Pedophile Arrested in India

As Reported by the BBC

Police in India's southern Tamil Nadu state say they are awaiting a request from the US authorities to extradite a convicted American paedophile.

Alan J Horowitz was detained in the seaside resort of Mahabalipuram near Madras (Chennai) on Wednesday.

He is wanted by Interpol and listed among the 100 most wanted men in New York. He was convicted in 1991 for sexually abusing numerous children.

He spent 15 years in a US jail and violated his parole in 2004.

'Sexual predator'

Indian police say they closed in on Horowitz in Mahabalipuram, a popular tourist spot 50km (30 miles) from Madras, after an 11-month chase across Asia.

Tamil Nadu state police chief D Mukherjee said an alert had been issued by Interpol for Horowitz's arrest.

A child psychiatrist and an ordained Jewish rabbi, 60-year-old Horowitz was a notorious sex offender.

His listing on the New York State Division of Parole website says he sexually abused "numerous underage males and females known to him through his position of authority".

The Division of Parole's head, George Alexander, said in a statement: "We are extremely pleased to have this dangerous sexual predator in custody and look forward to bringing him back to New York."

Horowitz violated his parole last year and fled the US using fake travel documents.

He is thought to have spent time in Thailand and Hong Kong before arriving in the southern Indian city of Bangalore a fortnight ago.

Interpol are believed to have tracked him to Mahabalipuram, where he checked into a hotel.

Following information from Interpol, US diplomats then alerted the Tamil Nadu police who moved in.

The BBC's TN Gopalan in Madras says that with Horowitz now in custody, extradition proceedings are expected to begin soon.

See also this report:

Alan Horowitz, the notorious child molester who boldly dispatched a good-bye letter of sorts to his parole officer last year after bolting abroad, has been arrested in India, authorities said.

The arrest -- made Tuesday in India at 3:48 p.m., which was early Tuesday here -- ends a remarkable 11-month global manhunt for a man authorities describe as a remorseless predator with a brilliant mind.

A tip e-mailed to the "America's Most Wanted" television program steered authorities toward Horowitz -- one of New York's 100 most-wanted fugitives -- in Mahabalipuram, a city of about 12,000 on India's southeastern coast, parole officials said.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which joined the hunt for the Harvard-educated Level 3 sex offender in November, confirmed that Horowitz, 60, a trained rabbi, had been taken into custody.

Citing the sensitivity of the process of having Horowitz returned to the United States, the federal agency declined further comment.

Horowitz is being held on a U.S. warrant and is not accused of additional crimes in India, said Mark Johnson, a spokesman for the state Division of Parole.

Johnson said local authorities are examining Horowitz' travel documents, which included U.S. and Israeli passports. It could be days or weeks, he said, before Horowitz is returned to the United States, where he would face at least a parole violation, if not more charges.

The former psychiatrist who specialized in adolescents has dual citizenship in the United States and Israel. But he had no permission to leave the country, parole officials have said.

Retired Schenectady Police Investigator Peter McGrath, who tracked Horowitz across the country while trying to build a case against him more than a decade ago, said Tuesday he never doubted authorities would eventually find the man, who he counts among the most cunning predators he ever encountered.

"I knew they would (get him). I know the guys working on the case, and I knew they would," a pleased McGrath said after he was told of Horowitz' apprehension. "That's great."

In 1991, Horowitz was charged in Schenectady with more than 35 counts of sexual abuse and sodomy against three boys and a girl, all younger than 17. He later pleaded guilty and served more than 13 years in prison before he was paroled in 2004 as a highest-level sex offender.

Horowitz' documented criminal past dates to at least 1982 in Maryland, where he received five years' probation for "perverted sex practices," according to parole officials. But McGrath has said he believes there were more victims elsewhere who never came forward.

Once he was paroled in New York, Horowitz abided by the strict conditions of his release for about two years before apparently hopping a plane from New Jersey to Tokyo last June 8, just 24 hours after meeting with his parole officer, authorities have said.

Later that month, Horowitz' parole officer received a letter from him postmarked in Israel saying he'd never return to the United States -- a clear-cut violation of his parole, which lasts until 2011.

About the same time Horowitz jumped parole, he informed another branch of state law enforcement -- the Division of Criminal Justice Services, which runs the sex offender registry -- that he was supposedly living in a Tel Aviv apartment complex. Whether he ever did, and where else he may have visited while on the run, was not clear Tuesday.

Jon Leiberman, a correspondent for "America's Most Wanted," which aired a segment on Horowitz in February, said the tip that turned the case came early this month.

"Obviously he thought he could go to India and blend in," Leiberman said.