School Counselor Pleads Guilty To Child Porn Charges
A school counselor has pleaded guilty to child porn charges in what is proving to be a very disturbing case.
Todd Christopher Roatsey has pled guilty to attempted production of child pornography and attempted enticement of a minor. The 43-year-old man was a school counselor at Pinch Elementary in West Virginia at the time the crimes took place. He also confessed to distributing, receiving, possessing, and accessing child pornography that involved toddlers and babies.
This former school counselor collected images and videos of the young children between October 2019 and July of 2021. He also went onto Snapchat and posed as an 18-year-old boy in order to lure numerous young girls he met through his school counselor position into conversations throughout 2020. Allegedly, he exchanged over 100 messages with two 12-year-old girls and groomed them to send him videos of sexy dances and gymnastics positions. The minors were encouraged to “perform” in only sports bras and shorts. He also allegedly gained the trust of 2 young teenage girls and exchanged sexually explicit videos with the underage minors. He sent them clips of himself masturbating and received videos of these underage girls masturbating in return.
He had kept these horrific images on his cell phone and through Mega, a file storage service. In addition, Roatsey also distributed this content through the Kik messaging app. The Department of Homeland Security was tipped off and while working to gain a warrant the school counselor deleted his Snapchat account. He is being prosecuted for obstructing justice for doing so as this was evidence of his crimes.
United States attorney Will Thompson expressed the severity of the situation seeing as how Todd Christopher Roatsey was working as a school counselor while committing his crimes. He noted how Rotsey violated the trust that children and parents build with school counselors in a time when they need more support than ever. He declared, “Our children need to feel safe in our schools.”
This school counselor will be sentenced on September 14th this year and has already reached a plea agreement. He will serve in prison between 25 and 35 years. After that time, if released, he will be placed under federal supervision for the rest of his life and must register as a sex offender.
This child predator manipulated girls. He used his knowledge and position as a school counselor to prey on innocent minors in order to sexually abuse them. His activity was discovered through Project Safe Childhood. This Department of Justice initiative utilizes local, state, and federal resources to identify, apprehend, and prosecute child molesters while also working to aid the victims. It is run by the U.S. attorney’s office as well as the Criminal Divisions of Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
While it is terrifying for parents to know that a school counselor would go to such lengths to gain sexual images and videos of children, Todd Christopher Roatsey will never be allowed to be around children or work in a school again. As more and more cases of school staff being involved in child abuse continue to be exposed it is of great importance for parents to discuss body safety with children and alert them to the dangers of predators on and offline. It is a difficult subject, but thankfully groups like Project Safe Child are helping and one child predator is now unable to further offend.
