A former Texas preschool employee has pleaded guilty to paying two minor boys $200 to record child pornography after contacting them via Snapchat, according to prosecutors.
Mark Penfield Eichorn, a 27-year-old teacher’s assistant at Abilene’s St. John’s Episcopal School who was fired after his May arrest, admitted to procuring a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old to film explicit content on Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Texas announced.
The victims, a pair of friends from Georgia, confided to law enforcement that they made a 90-second video for Eichorn after one of the boys’ parents noticed the suspicious amount of money in his bank account, court documents obtained by KTAB revealed.
Eichorn admitted to knowing roughly how old the boys were and to transferring $200 to them over the Venmo app in exchange for the video.
A federal investigator testified that when asked about the children in Georgia, Eichorn replied, “Just those two?”
The guilty plea to the production of child porn comes with a maximum prison sentence of 30 years, but that is not the only charge he is facing.
Not only did a search of Eichorn’s electronic devices allegedly revealed multiple images of nude children who appeared to be younger than ten years old, the admitted groomer was accused of molesting a pupil in January, KTXS12 reported.
In that incident, the child’s mother reported the allegations to St. John’s Episcopal School teacher Kelsey Alexander, who reported it to head of school Rebeca McMillon, but neither employee notified child protective service officials or law enforcement.
McMillon is accused of telling the alleged victim’s parents that “nothing untoward had happened” and that Eichorn was just helping the child use the bathroom.
According to the Abilene Reporter News, federal prosecutors alleged that Eichorn admitted to inappropriately touching the student.
Further charges of indecency with a child were filed against the disgraced ex-teaching assistant by the Taylor County District Attorney’s Office in June.
Both McMillon and Alexander were also arrested in July for failure to report child abuse and were released after posting $8,000 bonds.
If convicted, both school officials face up to a year in county jail and a $4,000 fine, the outlet reported.
