Ed Savitz

Edward Isadore Savitz (also known as Uncle Ed, Fast Eddie and Dr. Feel Good) (February 22, 1942 – March 27 1993) was an HIV positive Philadelphia businessman who was arrested for paying thousands of young men for either engaging in anal and oral sex or for giving him dirty underwear and feces, which he kept in pizza boxes in his apartment.

Biography

Early life

Ed Savitz was one of four sons by Russian immigrants Paul and Ann Gechman Savitz. The Savitzes ran an amusement arcade in downtown Philadelphia. Ed ranked first in his class of 278 students, and voted most likely to succeed. He won a full scholarship to study economics at the University of Pennsylvania, but dropped out after two years. In 1967, also after two years' study, he quit Temple University's graduate school of music. In 1963, he married his high school girlfriend Judith Widman, who later became a lawyer, specializing in family law. They were divorced 10 years later. In 1981, his brother, Joseph, a lawyer who once served as a Deputy Attorney General in Pennsylvania, used barbiturates to commit suicide. In 1968, his brother Samuel founded [http://www.savitz.com/home.aspx The Savitz Organization] , an actuarial consulting firm specializing in retirement plans and other employee benefit programs. Ed later became the vice president.

exual Abuse

Savitz had an apartment on Rittenhouse Square and for years was known by the male youth of the area through word of mouth as a quick source of cash. From as far back as 1975, he offered teenage boys money, concert tickets and football tickets for their soiled underwear, and various sexual acts including: oral and anal sex, slamming his penis in a door, urinating on him, vomiting in his mouth and defecating in his mouth through a potty chair. Savitz reportedly kept the feces in pizza boxes in his apartment. He told the boys to eat cheese to make the feces taste better.

Savitz mostly targeted boys from the Grays Ferry neighborhood and even had a St. John Neumann High School yearbook, which he used like a catalogue, circling the pictures of boys he wanted to see and promising referral fees for bringing them to him.

Arrest

Savitz was first arrested in 1978 on an indecent assault charge. His record was expunged after he completed a rehabilitation program. In 1990, he was found not guilty on charges relating to the purchase of a minor's soiled underwear.

The neighbors in his high-rise apartment building complained of young boys entering and leaving his apartment at all hours of the day and night. One neighbor described the boys she saw as mostly "heavy metal types," who wore black leather clothes and chains and had long hair. Savitz told neighbors that he was a social worker, helping the boys.

Savitz's third arrest followed a six-month investigation by the city's sex-crime unit. By early March 1992, investigators had gathered enough evidence to install a wiretap and hidden video camera in his home. On March 25, detectives watched as Savitz offered to pay two 15-year-old boys for oral sex. Police burst into the apartment and took him into custody. Savitz was charged with crimes of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual abuse of children, indecent assault and corrupting the morals of a minor.

Police found 5,000 photographs of boys and 312 bags of soiled boy's underwear at Savitz's apartment and a rented storage center nearby. His arrest also caused an AIDS scare in the Philadelphia area due to the large number of individuals that he had sexual contact with. AIDS hotlines were flooded with calls after his photo was released.

Bail was set for three million dollars, and Savitz was released. He was arrested again the next day when bail was raised to twenty million dollars when complaints involving two teenagers were verified.

Although Savitz tested HIV positive about a year before his arrest, he continued to have unprotected sex with boys until his arrest.

The trial was set to begin April 5, 1993, but Savitz died of AIDS in a prison hospice a week before on March 27.

Trivia

Howard Stern mentions Uncle Ed in his 1996 book, "Miss America". A few days after the story broke, Stern spoke by phone with two men who claimed to have obtained football tickets from Savitz almost 20 years before, in exchange for giving him soiled underwear.

References

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E0CE6DD153CF931A35757C0A964958260 Philadelphia Suspect: A Troubled Life]
* [http://citypaper.net/articles/011896/article002.shtml Suing Uncle Eddie]
* [http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975260,00.html Uncle Ed's Ugly Secret]
* [http://www.aegis.org/news/ads/1992/AD920785.html "American Notes: Uncle Ed's Ugly Secret"]
* [http://www.aegis.com/news/wb/2005/WB050806.html Concerns raised about HIV sex prosecutions: Creating 'AIDS criminals' doesn't slow transmission rates, researchers argue]
* [http://www.markdlv.com/forum/showthread.php?p=453 My Ed Savitz Research]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F0CE0DC143EF93AA15750C0A964958260 Philadelphian With AIDS Tells of Sex With Many Boys]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F0CE7DB1E31F93AA15750C0A965958260&n=Top%2fNews%2fHealth%2fDiseases%2c%20Conditions%2c%20and%20Health%20Topics%2fAIDS Executive Accused of Sex With Boys Dies]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E0CEFD61039F932A05750C0A964958260 More Say They Are Sex-Case Victims]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2D9143CF93BA35757C0A964958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=2 2 Neighborhoods Linked In Scandal and in Shame]
* ISBN 0061095508