Former Lenawee Christian School teacher facing child porn charges
A former Lenawee Christian School substitute teacher and youth sports coach is facing federal child pornography charges.
According to federal court documents, Matthew Thomas, is charged with producing child pornography, possessing material that contain images of child pornography that has been mailed and receiving child pornography that has been mailed/shipped or transported.
Court documents allege that Thomas took more than 90 photos of girls ranging in age from 3 years old up to age 14. Many of those photos showed juvenile genitalia. The images were then uploaded online. According to an FBI special agent, the crimes involve multiple girls, some of which are believed to be students and members of Thomas's community. The photos were taken sometime between November 2018 and August 2019.
Police say they searched Thomas's home and also informed the school of the investigation. Lenawee Christian School leaders say they are angry and call the entire situation a betrayal by someone who has gained trust.
"We love and care for your children as if they were our own and it breaks out hearts that someone we all trusted appears to have betrayed us and done something so horrible. I am truly sorry this happened," said Dr. Jim Colman, the CEO of Lenawee Christian School.
Colman says the school district is cooperating with authorities and as soon as Thomas was arrested last week, he was fired from the school immediately.
Thomas appeared in federal court in Detroit on Friday, September 27. His detention hearing was postponed until Thursday, October 3. He remains in custody.
As for the school district- here is a full statement regarding the ongoing child pornography investigation:
"My colleagues and I are devastated that it’s necessary to be emailing you tonight about the shocking and disgusting allegations made against a former substitute teacher at our school. As you must know, Matthew Thomas was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday on child pornography charges.
You deserve a full explanation as to the events surrounding these horrible crimes.
Last week, FBI agents contacted school administrators and asked for our help in a child pornography investigation. They shared very few details with us but did tell us that Mr. Thomas was the suspect and that some of the victims may have been our students.
Our obvious reaction upon learning this information was that we wanted to immediately fire Mr. Thomas, to ensure that he had no contact with our students and to notify parents.
However, the FBI agents told us that they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him and warned us that doing anything to tip him off might allow him to destroy evidence and escape prosecution.
Very reluctantly, we agreed to the FBI’s request to stay silent for a few days as the agents continued their investigation.
We did, however, take immediate steps to monitor Mr. Thomas’ classroom at all times utilizing multiple staff members so that he was never alone with students.
The FBI never told us when they were going to arrest Mr. Thomas. We learned of his arrest on Wednesday night. We then fired Mr. Thomas immediately and sent a short statement to parents.
Words cannot express the depth of anger and betrayal all of us here feel. We love and care for your children as if they were our own and it breaks our hearts that someone we all trusted appears to have betrayed us and done something so horrible. I’m truly sorry that this has happened.
Our foremost responsibility and goal is to keep your children safe. Every day, we do so many things to safeguard students. Since we learned of this incident, we’re reviewing our operations and will seek any new safeguards available moving forward.
We’ve offered free counseling by trained professionals to every student and parent who requests it. If you or your child would like to speak with a professional, please get in contact with the school so we can help."
-Dr. Jim Coleman, CEO Lenawee Christian School
