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Posted on Fri, Nov. 21, 2008

Jeweler guilty of making bathroom videos

By Vernon Clark

Inquirer Staff Writer

A Center City jeweler was sentenced to
eight years of probation yesterday after pleading no contest to charges that he
secretly videotaped six women using bathrooms at his home and store.

Benjamin Sorkin, 52, owner of Ben Sorkin Jewelers at 705 Sansom St., issued
the plea in an agreement with prosecutors that also calls for a $10,000 fine and
200 hours of community service.

Assistant District Attorney Erin O'Brien told Judge Francis P. Cosgrove in
Common Pleas Court that testimony would indicate that Sorkin used hidden video
equipment in his store to record three of his female employees using the
bathroom and that hidden equipment was also used to videotape three women at his
home in Northeast Philadelphia.

O'Brien said the female store employees would have testified that one of them
noticed that whenever they entered the store bathroom, Sorkin would push a
button and look toward the floor. They then found found a camera hidden in the
floor.

O'Brien said the women also found videotapes of themselves using the
toilet.

Three female guests of Sorkin's family were videotaped using the toilet at
his home, O'Brien said. She said that those women were from out of state and
that two of them thought they might have been younger than 18 when the
videotapes were made. Sorkin and his wife live in the Northeast; the couple has
three daughters.

Sorkin stood silently as the terms of the plea agreement were outlined for
the judge. Several of Sorkin's relatives attended the hearing.

Sorkin received one year of probation for each count of invasion of privacy
and two years of probation for each count of possession of an instrument of
crime, O'Brien said.

After the hearing, Louis Priluker, Sorkin's lawyer, declined to comment on
the case.

Asked whether the sentence was too lenient, O'Brien said, "We are happy with
the arrangement that we worked out. It's within the sentencing guidelines. . . .
It will keep him under supervision for the next eight years."

O'Brien said the agreement spared the women the trauma of testifying and "the
trauma of having to have those videos played in public."

Contact staff writer Vernon Clark at 215-854-5717 or [email-masked].

Buzz this story.

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