ESSEX, Md. — An art teacher at Stemmers Run Middle School in Essex, 49-year old Craig Clontz, has been placed on administrative leave facing child pornography charges.
“It does strike close to home,” said Teresa Fowler who lives near the school. “I have a middle school grandchild. That is disturbing and I think that they start with this and it leads to other things.”
After receiving a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about an image uploaded to a Dropbox, detectives tracked it to Clontz’s account and searched his home on Wilson Point Road in Middle River where they found a thumb drive, which contained nearly 800 erotic and pornographic pictures of a girl 11 to 13 years of age.
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More porn including a pair of videos turned up in a deleted Dropbox folder.
The accused teacher is engaged to be married next year, and his attorney asked for his release or home detention based on the fact that he has no prior criminal record.
Noting that Clontz has been teaching children of a similar age to those depicted in the pornographic pictures, a judge denied him bail.
While police do not believe any of the pictures are of the suspect’s actual students and he’s not accused of producing the material, he faces five counts of possessing child porn, which each carries a maximum of five years behind bars if he’s convicted.
“It’s not a victimless crime,” said Fowler. “Those children are victims. Whoever is in the pictures is a victim. Even if it’s not my child or your child or the children he’s teaching, whoever is in that picture is a victim.”
