The long, strange saga of the sick former third-grade teacher at a fancypants private elementary school who replaced Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list in 2012 has now come to a satisfying end.
On Tuesday, Eric Justin Toth was sentenced to 25 years in prison on three counts of production of child pornography (and a couple of other charges). Upon his release, he will remain strictly supervised until the day he dies.
Toth, 32, was once a teacher at Beauvoir Elementary in Washington, D.C. (and also a camp counselor in northwest Wisconsin).
In 2008, school officials discovered pornographic images on a school camera that had been in his possession.
Federal investigators said Toth shot explicit pornographic video of a young boy inside Beauvoir Elementary, which is associated with the Washington National Cathedral.
The international manhunt for Toth began when he fled the Washington, D.C. area.
Five years later, in 2013, the ex-elementary school teacher was arrested in Nicaragua.
An eagle-eyed American tourist was responsible for the child pornographer’s downfall. The unidentified tourist met Toth at a “social engagement” in Nicaragua, according to The Washington Post. He was hiding a telltale mole under his left eye by wearing an eye patch.
Federal officials discovered images and videos depicting child pornography on a laptop computer that Toth used when he lived in Nicaragua (and also Texas, where he resided from 2009 to 2012).
Toth pleaded guilty in 2013 in a federal court in the District of Columbia.
“For the next 25 years, Eric Toth will be where he deserves to be — in a federal prison where he cannot harm any more children,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in a statement obtained by The Daily Caller.
“Behind bars, Toth will no longer be able to manipulate and sexually exploit our most vulnerable victims,” Machen continued. “The FBI deserves tremendous credit for tracking Toth to Nicaragua and bringing him to the District of Columbia to face justice. The five-year manhunt that led to his capture demonstrates the depth of our commitment to defending children from sexual predators.”
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