The man, Anthony Cotroneo, was most recently a teacher at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn after making his way through a series of teaching jobs. Prior to that, he had been on probation for three years for his first child porn offense.
Prosecutors are puzzled by how Cotroneo, 57, was even able to get a job as a teacher after having child porn on his record, and school officials were unable to prove that Cotroneo's police record had ever been reviewed as part of the hiring process.
Colleagues from Cotroneo's former teaching jobs expressed surprise that someone as generally liked and seemingly responsible as Cotroneo could have been involved with child porn.
Cotroneo's continued interest in child porn caught the attention of postal inspectors after his name came up recently in an Internet chat room for pedophiles looking to purchase hardcore child porn images and videotapes, authorities said.
"During the course of the next several months, the defendant repeatedly requested the videotapes, which were explicitly advertised as containing images of extraordinarily violent child pornography," the Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch said in a written statement.
Cotroneo reportedly asked the sellers of the child porn to mail the materials to friend's address to avoid having his wife find out, the New York Daily News reported.
A search and seizure of his home in Staten Island revealed a large amount of child porn DVDs and movie files on his desktop computer containing "images of prepubescent girls" being sexually abused by adult males, the New York Daily News reported.
"This is outrageous," an Education Department spokeswoman was quoted as saying. "We are looking into a procedure so that this doesn't happen again."
Cotroneo's arrest is still pending, say authorities, after his wife posted bail.
