A married 42-year-old tax attorney from the prestigious law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP was indicted on charges of paying sisters aged 13 and 15 to have sex with him and also of paying them and their mother to stay quiet, the district attorney of New York County announced yesterday.

James Colliton, 42, who worked at Cravath’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, was charged with rape, patronizing a prostitute, bribing a witness, and tampering with a witness for the systematic abuse of the girls over a number of years ending last month, the 12-count indictment charges. Mr. Colliton is now a fugitive, the district attorney’s office said in a press release.

The executive director of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Steven Spiess, said Mr. Colliton no longer worked for the firm, but would not indicate when or for how long he was employed there. According to an older version of the company’s Web site, Mr. Colliton, who was an associate at the firm, graduated from New York University School of Law and received a bachelor of science from Syracuse University.

Mr. Colliton was apprehended last Friday at 11 p.m. in Toronto, Canada, but was released for reasons that remain unclear. The public information officer for the Toronto Police Service did not immediately return calls for comment. Law enforcement officials believe Mr. Colliton is hiding within the United States.

Authorities said the trouble began in the summer of 2000 after Mr. Colliton was introduced to his then 15-year-old victim, who he had met through her cousin, an employee at a strip club that Mr. Colliton frequented, officials said. The name of the club was not made available.

Mr. Colliton invited the teenager to his East 56th Street apartment, plied her with alcohol and marijuana, the D.A.’s office said, and then paid her for sexual acts. He continued to pay her for various acts for the next four years.

In 2004 Mr. Colliton allegedly shifted his sights to the victim’s younger sister, who was 13 at the time, the D.A.’s office said. Their mother allowed the 13-year-old girl to move into Mr. Colliton’s midtown apartment, where he allegedly paid her for sex about five times a month continuing through last year. Mr. Colliton, who is married with five children, maintains a residence in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. A comprehensive telephone and address directory showed a James and Grace Colliton at a Millbank Road address in Poughkeepsie, consistent with the address provided by prosecutors, but the directory provided no working phone number.

Mr. Colliton paid the girls’ mother, whose full name was not disclosed to protect the identity of the girls, for access to her children, according to the D.A.’s office. She took money from him for rent and other living expenses, officials said. She was indicted February 9 on charges of two counts of promoting prostitution and one count of endangering the welfare of a child. According to the Associated Press, the felony complaint said that she sent the older daughter “to different locations to engage in sexual acts with an adult male in exchange for money.” The mother was held on $100,000 cash bail and is expected back in court April 4.

The abuse allegations were unearthed when the younger victim reported them to the Administration for Children’s Services last month. A spokeswoman for the child welfare agency, Sheila Stainback, said the agency filed a neglect petition in family court and the victims, now 21 and 14, are in the agency’s custody.

While Mr. Colliton does not have a criminal history, the mother of the two sisters was charged in 2002 with misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child. She and a relative allegedly kidnapped her two children from an ACS-placed foster home, officials said. The mother received a conditional discharge. One of the implied conditions is not being rearrested within a year.

Little could be learned about the mother, who resides in Manhattan. Mr. Colliton’s Manhattan apartment was on the third floor in an off-white shabby, four-story walk-up apartment building on 56th Street between Lexington and Park avenues.

The owners of the dry cleaners across the street said they last saw their weekly customer on February 21. The proprietors of Eminence Cleaners, a couple who would not identify themselves, said Mr. Colliton brought in an exceptional amount of laundry and was sometimes accompanied by one or two girls who wore a lot of makeup and appeared to be in their 20s. They said that Mr. Colliton has an outstanding bill of around $70 for laundry and dry cleaning that have not been retrieved.

A spokeswoman for the D.A., Barbara Thompson, told the AP that Mr. Colliton provided the girls with mobile telephones to ensure immediate contact. Investigators believe there could be other victims, Ms. Thompson said, because they discovered a number of cellular telephones in his apartment.

Mr. Colliton’s attorney, Alan Abramson, did not return a call seeking comment.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s partners include some of New York’s prominent philanthropic and civic leaders. Its client roster has included such pillars of New York life as the Yankees and Time Warner. More than 10 years ago, a senior partner at the firm, David Schwartz, was stabbed to death in a cheap motel, allegedly at the hands of a male lover he had met the same day, in a case that attracted national attention and was the subject of a long article in the New Yorker.