A 37-year-old substitute teacher in Homestead, Florida, has been accused of possessing child pornography following a lengthy investigation.
Police arrested the suspect, George Henry Rafols, on Wednesday for possession of child pornography after authorities received a cyber tip, the Miami Herald reported Thursday, noting that he was employed at the Air Base K-8 Center.
An image shows the suspect in the case:
Law enforcement received a tip from the National Center of Exploited and Missing Children in October 2023 regarding a person uploading a file online that possibly contained abusive material.
Internet records helped authorities identify the suspect once an explicit image of a ten-year-old girl was uploaded on Discord, the Herald article said. He is now facing one count of possession and promotion of child pornography.
The newspaper article continued:
Rafols is the second Miami-Dade school employee to be jailed on child porn charges in less than a month. In August, Robert Lee Turner, a 62-year-old autism specialist who was employed by the school district, was arrested after being accused of uploading two videos of child porn to more than 50 users, according to Miami-Dade police.
A mother who spoke with NBC Miami said she and other volunteers celebrated Rafols’ birthday a few weeks before police took him into custody, the outlet reported Thursday.
She said he seemed to be a “normal guy” and expressed shock that he had been arrested. The woman added that, in the past, he had had contact with two of her children, but they told her that nothing about him concerned them.
“Other parents, however, told NBC6 that their kids said he seemed creepy,” the report stated.
In a statement, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) said:
The Homestead Police Department conducted their investigation with help from Miami-Dade Schools Police, and, although he is not an employee of M-DCPS, he will no longer be able to serve as a substitute teacher in the District. M-DCPS goes to great lengths to provide a safe school environment for our students and employees.
Rafols’ bond was set at more than $7,000, and authorities placed him on house arrest with GPS surveillance, per the Herald report.
According to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the term “child pornography” appears in federal law, but the term “child sexual abuse material” (CSAM) is preferred because it “better reflects the abuse that is depicted in the images and videos and the resulting trauma to the child”:
The market for CSAM among individuals with a sexual interest in children drives the demand for new and more egregious images and videos. The push for new CSAM results in the continued abuse and exploitation of child victims and the abuse of new children every day.
“When these images and videos are posted and disseminated online, the victimization continues in perpetuity,” it notes. “Children often suffer a lifetime of re-victimization knowing the documentation of their sexual abuse is on the internet, available for others to access forever.”
