A former high school teacher in Houston, Texas, Emilio Santiago De Los Santos, was sentenced to 97 months in prison for the distribution and possession of child pornography.

De Los Santos, who pled guilty on April 16, was also ordered to pay restitution to the victims and will serve 10 years on supervised release following his prison term. During this time, he will have to comply with numerous requirements designed to restrict his access to children and the internet, and he will also be required to register as a sex offender.

De Los Santos came to the attention of law enforcement after sharing multiple child pornography files in various subgroup chatrooms on the Keybase application. Authorities obtained a search warrant for his residence and seized his electronic devices, which contained 853 images and 380 videos of child pornography. The material included depictions of sexual abuse of infants and toddlers, sadistic and masochistic conduct involving children under the age of 12, and bestiality.

At the time of his arrest, De Los Santos was a high school teacher in the greater Houston area. He has been, and will remain, in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility. The FBI conducted the investigation, and the case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherin Daniel as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006 to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse1.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/former-high-school-teacher-sent-prison-possessing-images-and-videos-depicting-sexual

Commentary

The perpetrator at the time of his arrest was a teacher near Houston, Texas. The following is a quote from the source:

As a high school teacher, De Los Santos held a special trust, charged with watching over the children in his care. At the same time, he was sharing his own stash of child pornography with like-minded offenders and that's what makes this crime especially abhorrent," said Hamdani. "The exploitation of children has no place in our community and my office will vigorously prosecute those involved in the distribution and possession of child pornography to the fullest extent of the law, in particular a teacher like De Los Santos.

In addition to abusing his position, De Los Santos used an application called Keybase. Keybase is a secure messaging and file-sharing application that uses end-to-end encryption to ensure the privacy of messages and files. It allows users to connect with public identities from platforms like Twitter and Reddit and can store photos, videos, and documents securely.

The application allows users to prove a link between certain online identities and their encryption keys by posting a signed statement as the account a user wishes to prove ownership. This feature can be exploited by criminals to share illegal content securely, as it ensures that only the intended recipients can access the shared files and messages.

In this matter, Keybase was used to share child pornography. Encrypted technology is also used by perpetrators to communicate with student victims. For that reason, schools should prohibit the use of encrypted applications for communicating with students.