Prep School Official Charged For Child Pornography
Just years after a similar case involving a headmaster at the same school, a prep school official was arrested for dealing child porn.
The illicit trade of child sexual abuse images and videos has been a menacing problem over the years, and the internet is only making it worse. It is estimated that over 480,000 images of this graphic nature are viewed and shared every week. But what’s even more alarming is often the horrific discovery of who the perpetrators are sharing this content. Oftentimes, school officials are found to be predators dealing child porn, and that is exactly what happened once again, as an administrator at a Delaware prep school was recently charged for dealing with child pornography.
53-year-old William R. Ushler is the director of upper school admissions at Tower Hill prep school. The private school, located in Wilmington, Delaware, enrolls students in grade levels from preschool to 12th grade. On Tuesday, April 19th, the Associated Press revealed that authorities executed a search warrant at both the director’s home and his office at the school. The same day, he was arrested for dealing child porn.
The Delaware Department of Justice announced that Ushler is being charged with five counts of dealing with child pornography. Currently in custody, the alleged sexual perpetrator was given a cash bail set at $250,000. Authorities were originally led to the case from a tip reported by the Deleware Child Predator Task Force. The tip, which was received just days before his arrest, was initiated by Yahoo! Inc. The tech company indicated that an email user (Ushler) had transmitted files from his account containing child pornography. The emails in question included two emails sent on March 21st depicting a minor female in the nude, and another email sent back in 2019 with similar images. Investigators also reported that they found three more images of minors on Ushlers iPhone.
Officials with Tower Hill did not alert parents and the community of Ushlers arrest for dealing child porn until the next day via an email. Alerting recipients that the director had been both fired and barred from stepping foot on the campus, officials said, “We were advised that law enforcement authorities know the source of the images in question, and these images do not depict Tower Hill students or children who were in contact with Mr. Ushler.” The community will surely be reeling from the events that took place on Tuesday, but it’s a huge hit to the school that seems to be unable to go more than a few years without salacious scandals.
Just about seven years prior to Ushler’s arrest for dealing child porn, Tower Hill was caught in a similar incident involving the school’s former headmaster, Christopher Wheeler. Wheeler was arrested on 25 counts of dealing with child pornography following a search led by at the time Attorney General Beau Biden – the late son of President Biden. Imaged and videos were seized from the headmaster’s computer at a school-owned mansion he lived in, along with his office at the prep school.
After a long-winded trial, Wheeler was found guilty in 2015 of dealing child porn on all counts and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. But given a snafu in the legal system that challenged the legality of the original search warrant, the state Supreme court overturned the conviction. Wheeler was set free in 2016, despite the fact that he was proven guilty of his sex crimes against minors.
It’s disturbing to hear stories about sexual predators dealing child porn, but it’s even more foreboding when it happens in schools. Nearly 1 in 5 girls, and 1 in 20 boys are said to be victims of child sexual abuse in the United States, and it is only a growing issue. Ushler’s charges are considered a Class B felony, which each count punishable by two to 25 years.
