A therapist who counsels children and teens was arrested by the FBI Tuesday for allegedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old patient.
Prosecutors charged Elliot Halberstam of Bergenfield, New Jersey of filming his own sexual relations with the teenage boy.
Halberstam, who is listed as an assistant director with Jewish Family Service & Children's Center of Clifton-Passaic, is also accused of asking the teen to make numerous explicit videos that were later emailed or texted to him.
The FBI said it has the videos and graphic texts, and investigators searched his home Tuesday morning.
Halberstam rented hotel rooms to film some of his interactions with the teen, the FBI said, and in the criminal complaint, prosecutors detail nearly a dozen pages of graphic texts and emails the child therapist allegedly wrote to his minor patient.
Investigators said Halberstam set up sham email accounts to try to hide his online activity and sexual relations with his patient.
Calls and emails to Halberstam and his offices were not immediately returned.
During a court hearing Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Manhattan, Halberstam was ordered held without bail.
Prosecutors said Halberstam had been seeing the underage patient since at least 2011.
** The allegations contained in the Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
** The allegations contained in the Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
