Former Elementary School Assistant Principal Sentenced to 60 Months for Receiving Child Pornography

ALEXANDRIA, VA—A former assistant principal at Greenville Elementary School, Joshua Myers, 29, of Warrenton, Va., was sentenced to 60 months in prison today, followed by five years of supervised release, for receiving child pornography.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton. Myers pled guilty on Sept. 6, 2012.

“While working as an elementary school administrator, Mr. Myers gathered a child porn collection focused on the sexual abuse of young boys and included vile pictures of violent sexual assaults on small children,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “He told an undercover agent that he had sexually assaulted boys as young as 9, and agents found online chats he had with more than 40 individuals involving child pornography, sex with children, and grooming children to be sexually abused. This case is a sobering reminder that a sexual predator is often someone familiar, and we are committed to doing everything in our power to remove these predators from our communities.”

“Mr. Myers was entrusted to protect the welfare of our most precious resource, our children. Instead, he was a predator, victimizing children by distributing and receiving child pornography online,” said FBI ADIC McJunkin. “The FBI actively investigates crimes against children and those who victimize innocent children.”

According to court documents, Myers was identified through an undercover investigation of individuals using peer-to-peer file-sharing software to view and trade child pornography. Through an online chat with an undercover agent, Myers provided his password to folders on his computer containing child pornography and discussed his sexual interest in minor boys. Using the password provided, the undercover officer obtained through Myer’s shared folder several videos containing child pornography, including a video of a minor boy who appears to have been raped by an adult male and a toddler being sexually abused by two adults.

Myers was arrested on June 15, 2011, at his home following a search of his residence. According to court documents, Myers admitted to being the specific user on the peer-to-peer network, admitted to trading child pornography with various users, and indicated he had child pornography stored on a thumb drive in his car and on his work-issued laptop at school. Subsequent forensic analysis of the evidence seized revealed that he was distributing and receiving child pornography online.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation Task Force, with assistance from the Warrenton Police Department and the Northern Virginia/District of Columbia Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. Special Assistant United States Attorney Maureen C. Cain prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on https://pcl.uscourts.gov.