What better job for an aficionado of child pornography than elementary school teacher? That’s exactly the career path John Raymond Kinloch took until he was busted last week on child porn charges.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Kinloch, a 41-year-old first-grade teacher at Wolf Canyon Elementary School in Chula Vista, California, was arrested Friday on three criminal counts: possession of child pornography, using a minor in an obscene manner and luring a minor for a sex offense.
He was later released on $100,000 bail.
The charges are not related to students in Kinloch’s class or the larger school district, a spokesperson for the district said, according to the Union-Tribune.
According to KGTV, San Diego’s ABC affiliate, Kinloch persuaded young boys to send him nude photos of themselves by pretending to be a 13-year-old girl. He met the boys on social networking sites such as Meetme.com.
As it turns out, this incident isn’t Kinloch’s first run-in with the law over an alleged predilection for naked boys.
According to an article in the San Diego Reader, Kinloch may have been active in international child pornography rings as long ago as 1995 when he was a student at San Diego State University.
The Reader, an alternative weekly, reported in 1998 that Kinloch testified in England in the child porn trafficking trial of a defendant named Christopher Wrigley.
At the time — late spring of 1998 — Kinloch agreed to testify at the behest of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego, which promised him immunity here if he cooperated in the case.
Wrigley and Kinloch had allegedly bonded over the internet thanks to their mutual love of child porn. Information on Wrigley’s computer led authorities to Kinloch.
“At first it was pictures of ourselves, later it was boys,” Kinloch told the Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, according to The Reader. “At first it was nothing indecent, later on you could class it as indecent.”
Kinloch told the English court that he was attracted only to “teenage boys and younger.” He also admitted that, in 1995, he and Wrigley had traded pictures of boys as young as five.
According to the Union-Tribune, school officials are angry that they had no knowledge of Kinloch’s past when they hired him in 2000.
The school district has since placed Kinloch on administrative leave.
School principal Debra McLaren informed parents of the arrest by letter.
“We regret to inform you that one of our teachers has been arrested for issues related to his private life,” the missive said, according to the Union-Tribune. “We assure you that none of the charges he is facing deal with any of our students.”