WV Regional Jail & Correctional Facility Authority
A West Virginia educator and onetime Elementary College Counselor of the Yr who was indicted on child-pornography expenses in December had been speaking with a number of younger youngsters who attended the varsity the place he labored, a federal search warrant obtained by The Every day Beast reveals.
Todd Roatsey, 42, chatted with the youngsters whereas posing as a fictitious teenage boy named “CDaily,” in line with the warrant. The disturbing new window into Roatsey’s alleged actions solutions one of many greatest questions surrounding the fees once they emerged this fall.
“A assessment of [Roatsey’s] cellphone… revealed a number of display recordings of Snapchat conversations with minors, a few of whom have been recognized by regulation enforcement as college students who attended or had been attending Pinch Elementary College, the place Roatsey was employed as the varsity counselor,” the submitting states. “These recordings had been made beginning in January 2020 and continuing by late summer time/early fall of 2020.”
No less than two of the youngsters, neither of whom has but been recognized by authorities, “despatched movies of themselves engaged in sexually specific conduct at Roatsey’s course,” the warrant continues. Others—some as younger as 11—despatched movies “depicting themselves engaged in sexually suggestive conduct that fell in need of the necessities for sexually specific conduct underneath federal regulation,” it says.
Roatsey’s units contained “substantial quantities” of video footage exhibiting youngsters being sexually abused, in line with the warrant, which says a folder on Roatsey’s cellphone labeled “Productiveness” contained quite a few subfolders inside bearing names corresponding to “Youngster,” “Rape,” and “Rape1.” One of many movies was titled “Instructor fucks women,” the warrant states. A number of others allegedly confirmed “infants and toddlers” being sexually abused by adults.
One of many e-mail addresses Roatsey used was “costanzag558@gmail.com,” the warrant states, presumably a reference to the George Costanza character on Seinfeld.
John A. Carr, Roatsey’s legal professional, declined to remark when reached by cellphone on Tuesday.
Roatsey, who in 2016 was honored on the White Home for his work with youngsters, first appeared on the radar of U.S. Homeland Safety Investigations (HSI) brokers final August. That’s when investigators acquired a cybertip from the Nationwide Middle for Lacking & Exploited Kids a few consumer on the Kik cell messaging app who had uploaded quite a few movies and images exhibiting “prepubescent and pubescent minors engaged in sexual exercise,” a felony grievance filed in November 2020 states.
HSI brokers traced the IP tackle related to the uploads again to Roatsey’s dwelling in Elkview, West Virginia, the place he lives along with his father, in line with the grievance. A search of Roatsey’s home turned up the digital units on which investigators say they discovered the abuse movies.
Roatsey was at dwelling when the search was executed, and tried in charge the kid pornography on Airbnb company who had used his WiFi community, the grievance states. Nevertheless, Roatsey’s private cellphone and laptop computer contained at the very least seven movies and 26 photos deemed youngster pornography, along with “quite a few communications” between Roatsey and “women within the age vary of late elementary faculty by center faculty,” in line with the grievance.
Roatsey, who was indicted in December on eight further counts of possessing and producing youngster porn, acquired West Virginia’s Elementary College Counselor of the Yr Award in 2015 and visited the White Home the subsequent yr because the state’s nationwide counselor consultant.
“It was a black-tie occasion,” Roatsey informed the Charleston Gazette-Mail on the time. “I used to be very humbled and really honored to be there and to be there on behalf of all of West Virginia.”
Roatsey has pleaded not responsible to the fees in opposition to him.