Elementary School Teacher Found Guilty of Child Pornography Possession and Distribution
April 19, 2009Stephen Surette, 53, a former elementary school teacher in Swampscott, Massachusetts, has been found guilty of 8 charges of possessing and 3 charges of distributing images of young children beingsexually abused. He had been using Kazaa to download a wide variety of adult and child pornography, contending he didn’t realize the child pornography had been downloaded.
However, the evidence shows that he used search terms on Kazaa to look for pictures of pre-pubescent children being raped and tortured and the file names of the images he downloaded and burned to cd’s clearly indicated pre-pubescent children were being sexually abused.
According to the Salem Times, his lawyer indicated that his family was devastated. We wonder, however, if anyone had a thought for the American children’s lives who were devastated and ruined because of the demand for these images and the continued trading of images showing their humiliation, abuse, and torture. What about the investigators who were forced to view the images of degradation and pain these children had to endure? Surely the pain that was inflicted by this one man on the child victims depicted in the images, on the investigators and on his family, in addition to the high potential that he had child sex crime victims (studies show there is a one-to-one correlation between viewing child pornography and having hands-on child rape victims), surely warrants that he spend the rest of his life in jail.
The charges carry a 20-year maximum for each count of disseminating images, and 5 years per count for possessing the images.
