Deputies: Doctor stalked his victims

He’d lurk around areas where unsuspecting girls were sunbathing or sleeping, deputies say. With his iPhone, he’d zoom in on parts of their bodies and snap their pictures, storing them in his secret stash.

The picture taking and the pediatrician’s secret sexual attraction to girls as young as 13 went on possibly for years, according to newly released records since Dr. Michael Mizrachy was arrested Tuesday on three child pornography charges.

A series of search warrants issued by the Broward Sheriff ’s Office, as well as what appears

in an arrest report to be Mizrachy’s own admission of secretively longing for underage girls, paints a frightening portrait of an otherwise once well-regarded physician.

Mizrachy wasn’t just a passive observer. Records and the details provided by the Sheriff ’s Office say he chatted on-line with a 15-year-old through the use of a phone app. Eventually the girl shared photos of herself. She was unclothed.

Parents of children who have had contact with Mizrachy are calling detectives asking whether their child has been photographed, and other parents have expressed fear to the South Florida Sun Sentinel of what may have gone on behind closed doors as their children, when they got old enough, were alone with the doctor during examinations.

At this point, detectives say they have no evidence that Mizrachy, 49, exploited children in his medical office. But after Mizrachy’s arrest, a lawmaker is calling for the doctor’s medical license to be revoked or at least immediately suspended while he faces three child pornography charges.

State Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, said Mizrachy had been her kids’ doctor — someone she now calls “a wolf in sheep’s clothing that I handed my children to” during office appointments at West Broward Pediatrics.

Book fired off a letter to Florida Board of Medicine Chairman Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah, urging the agency overseeing physicians to stop Mizrachy from gaining “inappropriate access to children in medical settings.”

Book shared Zachariah’s email response, where he wrote, “I was appalled to read about this man.” He said he would make sure the board is aware of the concerns.

The state Department of Health did not respond Thursday to an email from the Sun Sentinel seeking comment about Book’s request or the doctor’s licensing status.

At this point it in the developing investigation, detectives have pieced together that Mizrachy likely created an account to masquerade his true intentions. The user name on the account was Orange Theory, the name of a popular fitness center business. The email was orangtheorysignup@yahoo.com.

In June, a group of law enforcement officers that investigate internet crimes against children were alerted that Yahoo discovered that one its subscribers had uploaded and sent a disturbing one-minute, eight-second video in the middle of the night.

Detectives then traced the IP address to an AT&T provider. Next, the Sheriff ’s Office subpoenaed AT&T for the identity of the subscriber assigned to the IP address. What came back, according to the arrest report, was the name Michael Mizrachy.

Another search warrant revealed over a dozen images of children in either bathing suits and underwear or short shorts. None of the children appear to have known they are being photographed, the report says. The girls were between 13 and 15 years old, although one image shows a 10-year-old, the Sheriff ’s Office told the Sun Sentinel.

At 6:30 a.m. Oct. 12, agents showed up Mizrachy’s palatial, pool home on Lakeside Drive in Parkland with yet another search warrant.

Records say Mizrachy admitted that the account in question was his and that he had the account several years as “his hidden secret.”

He claimed he got the video from someone he was chatting with on the Kik app who asked whether he wanted to see a video of his friend.

The arrest report says he told the detectives he thought the child was older — the child was prepubescent — but a detective reminded him that as a pediatrician he should know better.

“Mizrachy agreed that the child in the video was prepubescent,” the arrest report states.

He told authorities that he used the app to chat with children in a sexual manner. One of the children sent him nude photos, the report says.

“Michael Mizrachy advised he would never tell his wife or children that he took the photographs and that they were only for him and he took them because it was sexually exciting,” the report says.

After hearing about the allegations, Book called the doctor a “monster” and “despicable.”

“This predatory physician used his position of power and trust to gain access to children,” Book wrote to the medical board. “His deviant predilections and illegal activities pose a unique and targeted threat to the children of Broward County and beyond.”

The senator, a longtime fighter against child abuse, also said she’s incensed that Mizrachy was allowed to keep his license to practice medicine for over three months after authorities searched his home. Mizrachy stopped working for the pediatrics practice around that time, but his exact whereabouts after that are unclear.

“This is an issue,” Book said of the lack of action on his license after Mizrachy became a suspect. “There has to be a better way.”

State records show Mizrachy obtained his state license in 2000 after completing a three-year residency at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.

The health department website indicates there have been no complaints or discipline in at least the last 10 years against Mizrachy, whose license is not set to expire until January 2023.

Book said families from the practice had no idea there was a criminal investigation and were told only that Mizrachy was on leave. She said it’s extremely upsetting to think that the doctor was long working in a “target rich environment.”

In a statement Wednesday, West Broward Pediatrics said it was “shocked and deeply disturbed by these accusations,” adding that it had “no evidence that any crimes were committed in the course of his professional duties.”

Asked Thursday how many patients were under Mizrachy’s care, a spokeswoman for the practice said she had no additional information to provide.

Health department records show that Mizrachy is affiliated with three area hospitals: Broward General Medical Center, Plantation General and Memorial Hospital West.

Mizrachy is under court orders to stay away from all minors, with the exception of supervised visits with his two children, one whom is younger than 18.

Mizrachy declined to speak with reporters as he walked out of jail on a $30,000 bond. His lawyer, Richard Merlino, could not be reached for comment Thursday despite phone messages.