PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A doctor who worked with youth hockey teams in the Detroit area pleaded no contest Tuesday to sexual assault and other crimes involving 13 people, including some teenagers.
Zvi Levran, who was known as the “hockey doctor,” built relationships with players when they were teens and continued to see some of them as adults, authorities said.
Victims testified that Levran groped them when they sought sports physicals or treatment for injuries and showered with them after workouts. One man said Levran performed oral sex during an appointment for a hip injury.
The plea “ensures Levran’s victims will not be re-traumatized by the burden of testifying at trial. It also spares them any further uncertainty about the outcome of this case,” Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald said.
A no-contest plea in Michigan is treated as a conviction at sentencing. Levran, 68, pleaded no contest to 28 crimes including third-degree criminal sexual conduct, the most serious, the prosecutor's office said. The maximum prison term is 15 years.
Defense attorney Jonathan Jones told the judge that the plea “just seemed like the right thing to do."
During earlier court hearings, Jones had described Levran as an “eccentric gentleman” who did not touch patients for sexual purposes.
The allegations drew comparisons to another Michigan sports doctor, Larry Nassar, who is in prison for assaulting teens and young women including Olympic gymnasts and for possessing images of sexual exploitation of children.
