A Texas preschool teacher has confessed and pleaded guilty to paying two young boys to make child pornography for him after contacting them on Snapchat.
Mark Penfield Eichorn, 27, was a teacher’s assistant at Abilene’s St. John’s Episcopal School until he was fired after his arrest in May.
Eichorn’s victims were 12 and 13 year old boys.
On Tuesday, Eichorn pleaded guilty to production of child pornography according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Texas.
“The children, who lived in Georgia, later confided to law enforcement that they produced a 90-second video as instructed and sent it to Mr. Eichorn, who paid them $200 via Venmo. Financial and phone records corroborated their accounts,” the press release explained.
Eichorn told law enforcement after his arrest that he knew the boys were around 13-years-old when he paid them to make the video.
The press release added, “At a detention hearing shortly after he was indicted, federal law enforcement testified that when asked about the children in Georgia, Mr. Eichorn responded, ‘just those two?’”
Local station KTXS reports, “in July, another teacher as well as the head of school were also arrested. Kelsey Alexander and Rebecca McMillon were arrested and charged with failure to report child abuse in relation to Eichorn’s case.”
Breitbart News added:
Not only did a search of Eichorn’s electronic devices allegedly revealed multiple images of nude children who appeared to be younger than ten years old, the admitted groomer was accused of molesting a pupil in January, KTXS12 reported.
In that incident, the child’s mother reported the allegations to St. John’s Episcopal School teacher Kelsey Alexander, who reported it to head of school Rebeca McMillon, but neither employee notified child protective service officials or law enforcement.
McMillon is accused of telling the alleged victim’s parents that “nothing untoward had happened” and that Eichorn was just helping the child use the bathroom.
Eichorn is facing up to 30 years in federal prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release.
