A former Massachusetts rabbi was formally charged today with sexually assaulting two one-time students in separate incidents more than 30 years ago, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced.

STANLEY Z. LEVITT (D.O.B. 4/4/46) of Philadelphia was released on $5,000 surety following his arraignment on four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child in Suffolk Superior Court this morning. Each of those counts carries a potential 10-year state prison sentence.

Suffolk Superior Court Clerk Magistrate Robin Vaughan further ordered that Levitt have no unsupervised contact with children while his case is pending.

Assistant District Attorney Wayne Margolis of Conley’s Child Protection Unit said Levitt had been a teacher at the Maimonides School in Brookline between 1974 and 1977. Both of the victims were 11-year-old students at the school during that time.

In one incident, Margolis said, a student had been hospitalized after injuring his hand in an accident and was recuperating at Children’s Hospital in Boston. Levitt went to visit him in his hospital room and sexually assaulted him.

The second victim was assaulted three times during the course of a weekend visit to Levitt’s former residence on Chiswick Road in Brighton while the boy’s parents were out of town. Levitt allegedly assaulted the boy three times during that visit.

“There are numerous witnesses to corroborate the victims’ accounts,” Margolis said in court, adding that “a third witness has come forward in recent days” after learning of Levitt’s Sept. 23 indictment through the media.

Levitt has convictions for indecent assault on a child and corrupting a minor in Philadelphia, where he moved after leaving Maimonides. Levitt remains on probation for the Philadelphia offenses until December of this year.

Conley spearheaded efforts to extend the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse after repeatedly learning of older cases that could not be prosecuted because – as in this case – the victims did not disclose their abuse until many years later.

In 2006, those efforts paid off when the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse was extended from 15 years to 27 years.

It was a different aspect of the law, however, that allowed prosecutors to pursue the charges against Levitt, Conley said. When Levitt left Massachusetts, the clock on the statute of limitations stopped, allowing prosecutors to pursue the charges they learned of when the Children’s Hospital victim contacted Boston Police last year.

Levitt was represented today by attorney Scott Curtis. His trail date is scheduled for July 12, 2010, and he will return to court on Dec. 10.