A Texas public middle school teacher who was arrested in mid-April on child porn charges allegedly pretended to be a girl over text messages so he could solicit explicit photos from teenagers, KTRK reported Saturday.
Tyler Hardy-Croskey, 25, who was initially charged with ten counts of possession of child pornography and a count of sexual performance, was charged Friday with promotion of child pornography and sexual performance by a child, KTRK reported. (RELATED: Middle School Teacher In Texas Arrested On Possession Of Child Pornography Charges)
Court records: Multiple students have come forward since an @HumbleISD teacher has been arrested for child porn. Tyler Hardy-Croskey picked up two more charges today. #abc13 pic.twitter.com/7XmrVmFcZo
— Jessica Willey (@ImJessicaWilley) April 24, 2021
According to Texas law, a “sexual performance” includes any performance that includes sexual conduct by a child younger than 18 years old.
Hardy-Croskey was an eighth-grade history teacher at West Lake Middle School in Humble. He worked at the school since 2019 and has since been placed on leave.
According to court documents reviewed by KTRK, Hardy-Croskey allegedly had images on April 15 of children “engaging in sexual conduct.” A separate criminal complaint says that in December, he did “employ, authorize, and induce” a child “to engage in sexual conduct.”
Court records said that the father of a 14-year-old child found sexual text messages on the child’s phone in February from a person named “Sarah,” KTRK reported. There were also texts from a person named “Ty,” who was supposedly “Sarah’s” brother, and the texts dated back to December. “Ty” asked the teenager for naked photos, and asked the teenager to perform sexual acts with him, according to KTRK.
The text messages became more explicit with time. “It is not clear whether the student knew he was allegedly communicating with Hardy-Croskey, but court records show the teen’s father figured it out,” KTRK reported.
Following Hardy-Croskey’s arrest, numerous students who say they also received unusual texts from someone named “Sarah” came forward, according to KTRK.
Prosecutors have filed motions to revoke Hardy-Croskey’s bonds because he is allegedly a “danger to the community,” KTRK reported.
“There is a moment when there is an introduction of inappropriate material, whether in language or questions or pictures. That is a pathway,” Rania Mankarious, the CEO of Crime Stoppers Houston, told KTRK.
“Eventually, what you find is a child who is not capable of realizing what is going on, and really has been taken advantage of from the get-go. They’ve been targeted. They’ve been preyed upon and finds himself talking to someone they trust.”
Numerous teachers were arrested in April for predatory behavior involving minors or their own students.
A math teacher at a New York high school was arrested April 17 on charges that she raped a 15-year-old male student. Days before the New York teacher’s arrest, a former Texas public school teacher was arrested after being accused of having had a sexual relationship with a former student. The former student alleged that he and the teacher had sex not long after the boy turned 13.