According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a former city of Pittsburgh math instructor was sentenced last Thursday for possession of "extreme" child pornography on his personal computer and a school-issued computer. Reports detail that the 49-year-old Highland Park man was caught with more than 300 images of children, some sadistic, collected over more than a year. Police "collected between 300 and 600 images that included prepubescent children subjected to sadomasochistic assaults." He reportedly also engaged in "Internet and phone communications with an undercover agent posing as a mother of two pre-pubescent kids. He had orchestrated sexual activity that he believed was occurring between the mother and kids, and was preparing to travel to meet them for actual sex acts prior to his arrest."

The man sentenced in this child pornography case expressed, "After my divorce, I was lonely and despondent...Between loneliness and despondency, I went in a direction that just wasn't me." Reports detailed that the jury was extremely troubled by the nature of communications that went on for months between the man and the undercover agent.

Post-Gazette reported that following the man's release from jail, he will face 12 years of federal supervision. The man formally taught at Pittsburgh Sunnyside K-8 School and volunteered at the Hill House. He was reportedly suspended in August 2008 when police notified the district which initiated an investigation. He reportedly resigned a month later.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Former Teacher Sentenced for Child Porn" 1/20/2011