FORT WORTH, Texas - A former teacher at Denton High School appeared in federal court today and pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.
Gregory Bogomol, 38, of Fort Worth, appeared this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton and pleaded guilty to an indictment charging two counts of production of child pornography. Each count carries a statutory penalty of at least 15 years in federal prison and a maximum of 30 years in federal prison, up to a $250,000 fine, and up to a lifetime of supervised release. Bogomol has been in custody since May 2014 on charges outlined in a related federal criminal complaint. He resigned from his position with the Denton Independent School District the week prior to his arrest. Sentencing is set for Feb. 12, 2015, before U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means.
According to documents filed in the case, the investigation began when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) was contacted by the parents of a 15-year-old male victim regarding an individual who solicited a nude photograph of the minor through a smartphone application.
Specifically, according to the factual resume, Bogomol used social media applications such as KIK, Grindr, and Pinger to initiate conversations with underage males. Bogomol posed as a minor female and sent nude images of females to entice the boys to produce sexually explicit pictures.
After Bogomol received an image from the minor male, Bogomol would make additional explicit demands. If the minor male did not comply with his demands, Bogomol would threaten to send sexually explicit pictures of the boy to the boy’s friends via social media applications.
On approximately April 20, 2014, Bogomol coerced one minor victim to send a sexually explicit image of himself. A few days later, Bogomol coerced another minor victim to send a sexually explicit image of himself.
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources."
Anyone who may have been victimized in this case is asked to contact HSI at its toll-free number: 1-866-347-2423.
Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Saleem is in charge of the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
