A former middle school teacher from St. Louis County, Missouri, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for possessing child pornography. U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp handed down the sentence on Monday.
Scott R. Ellis, 39, was also ordered to pay $90,500 in restitution to 12 victims identified in the material he collected. Upon his release from prison, Ellis will be under supervised release for life.
Ellis was found with 72 images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on his cell phone and about 700 videos and more than 900 images stored in his Mega cloud account. The discovery of CSAM in his Google account led to two cyber tipline reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, prompting an investigation.
Ellis pleaded guilty in February to one felony count of possession of child pornography. At the time of his crimes, he was a teacher at Rogers Middle School in the Affton School District and had previously worked at Hancock Place School District in St. Louis County.
The FBI and the St. Louis County Police Department Bureau of Special Investigations conducted the investigation into Ellis's activities. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson prosecuted the case.
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The initiative aims to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals exploiting children via the Internet while identifying and rescuing victims.
For further information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.
