WEST HOLLYWOOD—On Thursday, January 8, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office disclosed that a piano teacher convicted by a jury last year of committing numerous lewd acts with a former teenage student has been extradited from Australia to the United States after he fled to Australia while awaiting his jury verdict. John Michael Kaleel, 69, was taken into custody by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department upon arriving at the Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday.
Kaleel was convicted on October 8, 2025, in case SA092017 of four felony counts of lewd act upon a child age 14 or 15 and one felony count of lewd act upon a child under age 14. Sentencing will be scheduled at a later date. From 2011-2013, he allegedly committed lewd acts upon a long-time student beginning when he was 13 years old.
He was arrested in Australia at the request of the United States and extradited to Los Angeles with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, Australian Attorney-General’s Department, and the Australian Federal Police. The U.S. Marshals Service escorted Kaleel to the United States.
The case is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson of the Sex Crimes Division and was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau.