Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Broward pediatrician who admitted to possessing child porn sentenced to 8 years
A pediatrician who practiced in Broward County was sentenced to 8 years in prison Thursday for possession of child pornography, federal court records say, nearly two years after he admitted to keeping a video of a minor girl in an email account that was his “hidden secret” and took inappropriate photos of his daughter’s friends while they were unaware.
Dr. Michael Mizrachy, 50, of Parkland, was arrested in January 2021 after an investigation found at least one video of child pornography in his personal Yahoo emails, along with more than a dozen photos of girls “in their bathing suits, underwear, or short shorts,” according to a criminal complaint, that were taken from behind the children.
The girls shown in the video and photos investigators found were between 14 and 18 years old, the complaint says.
Mizrachy admitted to authorities that he had kept the email address where the child pornography video was found for years and used it as his “hidden secret,” the complaint says.
Mizrachy said someone on the messaging platform Kik sent him the video. He sent it to his own email so he could save it, the complaint says.
Based on his experience as a pediatrician, the complaint says Mizrachy admitted the girl in the video had to be a “a prepubescent minor.” He also admitted to messaging minors on Kik; one 15-yearold victim sent Mizrachy sexually explicit photos of herself that were also found in his email.
Mizrachy said the photos of children investigators found were ones he took of his daughter’s friends who often came over to their house. He also sent those photos to another one of his email addresses to keep, the complaint says.
His daughter’s friends who he secretly took pictures of were mostly between the ages of 13 and 15, but one was as young as 10. He told investigators he was “sexually attracted to children as young as 13-years-old,” the complaint says.
Parents whose children were treated by Mizrachy contacted authorities, concerned their children may have been abused, the South Florida Sun Sentinel previously reported. At the time, detectives said they had no evidence of Mizrachy taking advantage of children in his office.
Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, wrote a letter to the Florida Board of Medicine in 2021 urging Mizrachy’s license be revoked or suspended. State Department of Health records show his license isn’t set to expire until January 2023.
After serving eight years in prison, Mizrachy will be on supervised release for 15 years, court records say, and will have to pay at least $13,000 in fines.