Former Hockaday School preschool teacher guilty of buying hundreds of child porn images
A former preschool teacher at Dallas’ Hockaday School has pleaded guilty to purchasing child pornography and keeping hundreds of sexually explicit images and videos of children on his cell phone.
In Kik chats, Jason Baldwin requested “mainly preteen boy-on-boy videos,” according to federal agents.
Baldwin, 29, entered his plea Tuesday to one count of receipt of child pornography.
The former teacher faces a maximum of 20 years in a federal prison.
In federal court documents, Baldwin admitted that he used Kik, an encrypted messaging app popular among teenagers, to purchase links to child pornography from another Kik user.
An investigation on Baldwin began after FBI agents executed a federal search warrant at the home of a convicted sex offender in Philadelphia. A search of the offender’s phone revealed that he routinely used Kik to solicit payment for links to child pornography. One of the accounts was traced back to Baldwin, according to federal authorities.
On Oct. 29, Baldwin messaged the sex offender about purchasing child pornography. The offender shared a link to a “preview” folder and indicated the complete file set would cost $27. Baldwin sent the money through PayPal and received links to the files a few minutes later, according to court documents.
Federal authorities said the investigation showed that Baldwin purchased child pornography from the offender several times over the next several months, on Nov. 11 ($13 for two videos of minor males); Dec. 8 ($10 for a video and more than 100 images); Dec. 18 ($12 for two videos), and Jan. 21 ($31 for seven videos).
Baldwin told authorities he had been viewing child porn for the last eight years.
The school told WFAA-TV that Baldwin was fired after his arrest in August 2020. The school told WFAA that no current or former students were involved in the incidents and there were no allegations of in-person misconduct.
This story was originally published August 25, 2021 at 1:05 PM.
