Former Philadelphia middle school teacher sentenced to 15 years in child porn case
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A former Philadelphia middle school teacher has been sentenced to 15 years in prison following explicit conversations with a 12-year-old boy in 2019, officials said.
Acting United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams announced Monday that Christopher O'Sullivan, 32, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, 10 years of supervised release and was ordered to pay restitution in connection with the case.
In October 2020, O'Sullivan pleaded guilty to one count of enticement of a minor, and one count of production of child pornography.
According to court documents, over several weeks in June and July 2019, O'Sullivan, a middle school teacher at a Philadelphia charter school at the time, sent a series of sexually suggestive text messages to a minor, a student of his who was 12 years old, to coerce the boy to engage in sexual activity and to send O'Sullivan sexually explicit photographs, officials said.
Eventually, the child sent O'Sullivan a photo, and the child's parents saw the sexually explicit text messages on the child's phone and contacted authorities. Law enforcement later found the same photograph on O'Sullivan's phone, officials said.
"O'Sullivan held one of the most sacred positions of trust in our society, a molder of young minds - a teacher," said Williams. "Schools must be safe havens for children. For this defendant to abuse his position by targeting and manipulating a student for his own perverse gratification is almost unimaginable. As always, we stand ready with our federal partners to identify and prosecute individuals that perpetuate this type of child abuse."
The video in the player above is from a previous report.
