By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — An attorney at a prestigious Midtown law firm was found dead in Mexico after he was arrested on child pornography charges.
Most recently a corporate attorney for Gibson Dunn, Moshe Gerstein, 35, was among 26 Manhattan men to be swept up in a child pornography sting announced on June 14 following a five-month investigation.
Two days later he was discovered dead, reportedly in Mexico City. It was not immediately clear whether he committed suicide. He had been arrested on May 10 and released without bail.
Prosecutors said Gerstein had 5,000 "images of child sexual assault" on a hard drive in his West 60th Street home, where he was arrested.
He was scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, when the prosecutor on the case said the charges would be "abated by death" once a certificate was filed with the court.
Gerstein's attorney profile has been removed from Gibson Dunn's website. An obituary in The Republican, a Massachusetts newspaper, said Gerstein attended Yale and Harvard and had been practicing law in New York for 10 years.
A substitute teacher, an architect and a restaurant dishwasher were among the others arrested in the child porn sting. Most were charged with felony child pornography possession offenses.
