Ex-Wis. summer camp counselor pleads guilty to child porn charges

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By ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) – A former Washington private school teacher who was once featured on the FBI’s list of most wanted fugitives pleaded guilty Thursday to child pornography charges and faces decades in prison.

Eric Justin Toth, 31, was captured in Nicaragua in April, ending a five-year period on the run that began after images of child pornography were found on a school camera that had been in his possession. His arrest came one year after the FBI publicized his disappearance by adding him to its Most Wanted list, where he filled a vacancy created by Osama bin Laden’s death, and offered a reward for information leading to his capture.

He pleaded guilty to producing child pornography, identity theft and misusing a Social Security number. The recommended sentencing range is between 22 and 30 years in prison, according to the terms of his plea agreement. Toth’s only remarks in court were “yes” and “no” answers to standard questions from a judge, and at one point he corrected the age of one of the child victims to whom prosecutors had referred.

The ex-teacher admitted in court to crimes of child pornography that prosecutors say spanned years and multiple states and involved secret videos and hidden cameras.

He took photographs and videos of a sleeping camper while working as a counselor at a Wisconsin summer camp in 2005 and, two years later, filmed himself sexually molesting a prepubescent boy, prosecutors say. He also installed hidden cameras inside a bathroom at the Beauvoir School, a private elementary school where he worked as a third-grade teacher. The recordings captured 15 children under the age of 10.

Prosecutors say his pornography possession continued even as he was on the run, though he is not being charged for those crimes.

“Eric Toth is every parent’s worst nightmare: a serial predator who took advantage of his position as a camp counselor and a teacher to sexually exploit children in his care,” U.S. Attorney Ron Machen said in a statement.

Toth’s attorney did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.

Toth was escorted off campus after school administrators found images of child pornography on a school camera that had been in his possession. He took off before police could arrest him, using aliases and stolen identities to evade capture over the next five years as he lived in places including Texas, Arizona and, finally, Nicaragua.

There were clues along the way. His car was located in a parking garage at a Minnesota airport in 2008, along with an apparent suicide note, and law enforcement learned the following year that he was working at a homeless shelter in Phoenix. A citizen’s tip led authorities to Nicaragua, where was arrested last spring while living under an alias.

As they traced his steps, authorities located pornographic images on a thumb drive left in his car in Minnesota and on a laptop computer that he had used in Arizona.