Cops: Miami Rabbi Traveled to Delray Beach Target to Meet Boy, 14, for Sex

Levi Cash (Photo: Palm Beach County Jail)

A Miami man who serves as a rabbi in Miami was arrested in Delray Beach after traveling to the city’s Target store on Linton Boulevard to meet a person he believed was a 14-year-old boy for a sexual encounter, authorities charge. The “boy” was actually a decoy, however, leading to police being called to the store.

Levi Cash, 64, of Miami, was arrested after members of a social media group known as the “561 Predator Catchers” contacted police. At about 3 p.m. last Thursday, Sept. 18, officers went to the Target store and met with two men from the “Predator Catchers” group – one who posed as the decoy and another who films the meetups for evidence – along with Cash. One of the men from the social media group showed officers screenshots of conversations between the decoy and Cash on the Grindr dating app, as well as text messages, a police report stated.

Police at the scene took a statement from Dustin Lampros, a well-known MMA fighter who leads the predator-catching group, who said that Cash came to the store to meet a 14-year-old boy. Lampros told the officers that Cash said he was going to buy “condoms and lube,” and then meet the 14-year-old by the gaming section. Lampros entered the store and walked to the gaming section where Cash was on the phone with the decoy, according to the statement given to police. The decoy notified Lampros, who approached Cash, and asked him a number of questions before police arrived.

Cash, in an interview with police, allegedly said he came to meet a 19-year-old man named “Tim,” but later found out the person was 14. An officer on scene used the decoy’s phone to call the number of the person he was presumably supposed to meet, which resulted in Cash’s phone ringing, the police report said.

Detectives seized Cash’s phone and also took into their possession the files on a Google Drive account collected by the Predator Catchers group, which allegedly contained calls with the decoy, chats from the Grindr application, the decoy’s Grindr profile, and text message logs. The two participants in the chat exchanged explicit messages which appeared in the police report, but have not been included in this story.

Police, in their report, said an investigation indicated Cash was a rabbi who was also employed as a “teacher coach” at a company known as Catapult Learning.

Cash was formally charged Sept. 19 and charged with using a communications device to commit a felony, and traveling to meet with or lure a child. The total bail for the two charged was set at $60,000; Cash remains lodged in the Palm Beach County Jail. He was also ordered to have no contact with persons under 18-years-old.