PHILADELPHIA Former teacher gets prison for child porn
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced a former teacher at a suburban high school Friday to four years and three months in prison for e-mailing child pornography to an FBI agent posing as a 12-year-old girl.
Robert Lester, who taught social studies at Upper Merion High School at the time of his arrest, will be on probation for three years after his release. He pleaded guilty to distributing images of the sexual exploitation of children in March.
Prosecutors said Lester exchanged several e-mails with agents who had been assigned to frequent Internet chat rooms in an attempt to identify pedophiles who might pose a danger to children.
In one of the notes, prosecutors said, Lester boasted of sexual acts with teenage girls. In another, he included photographs of children in sexual situations who appeared to between 6 and 10 years old. Later he communicated with another agent by telephone.
As part of the plea agreement, investigators dropped charges that he had tried to persuade an agent posing as a teenage girl to meet him for sex.
FBI agents arrested Lester in December after using America Online records to identify him.
Lester's attorney, J. Scott O'Keefe, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday.