Investigator Robert Fitzgerald said he is particularly gratified by the guilty pleas because the prostitution ring operated in neighborhoods with many young children.

Two members of Gordon's last congregation attended Tuesday's court proceedings. "In the time I was a member of his temple and shortly afterward, I came to see the many sides of Joel Gordon, from a man who could engage in vicious shouting to one who was sanctimonious and insidious," said one former congregant, lawyer Sam Bell.

Gordon previously served as a cantor in other Chicago-area congregations, as well as in New Jersey and Atlanta.