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Former Deputy Minister of Education Dr. Benjamin Levin (L), who was arrested in 2013 for making child pornography, attends Toronto Pride in 2013 with Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, and former Liberal leader Bob Rae.

TORONTO, February 19, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a letter seeking support from his friends, leaked to media this week, accused child pornographer Benjamin Levin admits that he asked a mother “to sexually assault her child for him.”

The letter provides the first comments the public has heard from Levin since his July 2013 arrest on child sex charges.

As deputy minister of education under Premier Kathleen Wynne when she was minister of education, Levin was the top bureaucrat in the department as the government developed the controversial sex ed curriculum that critics believe prematurely sexualizes children.

Levin wrote in his leaked letter that he intends to plead guilty on March 3 to three of the seven charges, and asked that “friends and colleagues” consider writing a reference letter for him to the court.

A “deeply ashamed” Levin will plead guilty to “one count of possession of child pornography, one count of making written child pornography, and one count of counselling a sexual assault.” He wrote that the court will benefit from “having as full a picture” of him as possible.

“You are someone who knows me and my work and may be willing to contribute such a letter,” penned Levin, once a tenured professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, affiliated with the University of Toronto, who has since lost his job. He suggested that the reference letters “should speak to my personal qualities or professional accomplishments (both of which can be illustrated by sharing anecdotes) as you know them.”

The letter was leaked by Dr. Charles McVety, a vocal evangelical leader and president of Canadian Christian College, who has been an outspoken critic of the Wynne government’s sex ed agenda. McVety first sent the letter to Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington, and subsequently sent it to LifeSiteNews.

Levin details his charges somewhat bloodlessly in his letter, which recommends that those writing on his behalf include the following: 

“I am aware that Mr. Levin is pleading guilty to one count of possession of child pornography, one count of making written child pornography, and one count of counseling a sexual assault.  I am aware that these charges stem from Internet conversations in which he engages with strangers in explicit discussion of sexual acts with children. I am aware that during these chats he counseled an undercover police officer posing as the mother of a child to sexually assault her child for him. I am aware that 15 images and 2 videos considered to be child pornography were found in his knowing possession on his computer.”

An unsigned attachment to Levin’s letter, titled “Statement version 7 for Benjamin Levin,” asks for understanding for the 62-year-old accused pornographer. “This is not a plea made out of convenience.  Mr. Levin fully accepts that what he did was wrong.

He believes that children need to be protected from exploitation of all kinds, including sexual.”

The statement says Levin “apologizes unreservedly. He is deeply ashamed of these actions, and highly aware that they have caused a great deal of hurt to many people, especially those people who matter most to him, including his family, friends, and colleagues.”

McVety and other pro-family groups regard Levin as the architect behind the controversial sex-education curriculum proposed in 2010, when now premier Kathleen Wynne was education minister in the Liberal Dalton McGuinty government, and Levin her deputy.

Outraged parents forced McGuinty to drop the sex-ed curriculum in 2010, but the Wynne government has since revived it. Although the Liberals have been tight-lipped about the curriculum’s release, to the consternation and criticism of concerned parents, it may be online scant weeks from now.

Meanwhile, Wynne has denied that Benjamin Levin had a hand in developing the controversial sex-ed curriculum, a claim McVety has dismissed as “nonsense.”

Find a full listing of LifeSiteNews' coverage of the Ontario government's explicit sex-ed program here.