Hialeah man, a former American High teacher, had over 600 child porn pictures and videos
A former teacher at three schools in Miami-Dade County had a 600 photo and video child pornography collection that included “images of a toddler engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”
That’s according to Hialeah resident Robert Ortiz’s guilty plea to child pornography possession. Ortiz, 27, was sentenced last week to 6 1/2 years in federal prison. The former math teacher at American High will serve at least 5 1/2 years of that sentence under federal prison law.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Ortiz previously worked at Jose Marti MAST 6-12 Academy and Youth Co-Op Preparatory Charter School in Hialeah, which has students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
A statement from Miami-Dade County Public Schools said:
“The conviction and sentencing of this depraved individual should serve as a strong message to anyone who chooses to participate in the victimization of children. This former employee was terminated in 2020 following his arrest and will be prevented from seeking future employment with our school system.”
Ortiz had been an employee for three years with a clean discipline record.
Undercover FBI officers lurking on the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing network in 2020 identified a computer with files believed to have child pornography, the indictment said. Tracking that file led to Ortiz’s Hialeah apartment. Then, they downloaded files made available for sharing from the computer.
They found molestation of a toddler, including attaching clamps to the child’s nipples and holding a lit candle to the toddler’s skin.
The indictment says when the agents approached the car registered to Ortiz, “the officer observed, in plain view” a Miami-Dade County Public Schools employee ID card.
On July 29, 2020, the FBI hit Ortiz’s apartment with a search warrant and left with an HP laptop and a Dell laptop.
“A forensic analysis of these computers revealed that they contained over 600 images and video files that depicted minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, i.e., child pornography,” the guilty plea said. “Among the files were images of a prepubescent minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2021 at 3:16 PM.
