Popular teacher arrested for allegedly possessing child porn
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SEATTLE -- Sheriffs say a link on a Facebook page led them to some disturbing material, and now a Snoqualmie Valley teacher has been arrested for possessing child pornography.
Parents and children had only nice things to say about substitute teacher Ted Bernstein, but beneath the surface, detectives say something sinister was going on.
If it weren't for Facebook, police might never have found the library of child pornography they say Bernstein had been collecting. An acquaintance of the 64-year-old teacher was looking through his personal Facebook page when a link came up that made her stop everything.
"She checked his wall and she thought, 'Oh, I wonder what Ted likes because there was a link that said he liked something,' and when she clicked on it, it was shocking," said parent Jennifer McDowell.
McDowell knows the woman who eventually alerted detectives to Bernstein's Facebook page, and she says she's seen the link.
"There were pictures of little girls, some of them in lingerie and in provocative poses," she said.
Because he hasn't officially been charged yet, King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West would not comment on Bernstein's case. But she said after reviewing the Facebook link, deputies went to a suspect's house and found more child pornography on a personal computer. While detectives are still sifting through the evidence, nothing so far points to any local students being victimized.
"We've had no indication that he's been doing anything at school, on school grounds or when he was teaching," West said.
Bernstein has been a substitute teacher in the Snoqualmie Valley School District for at least the past decade, filling in at elementary, middle and high schools. The district took him off the substitute list last month when the allegations first surfaced, and last Friday deputies arrested him.
McDowell said she considered Bernstein to be a neighborhood friend who seemed quirky but harmless, but now she questions everything she thought she knew about him.
"There's another element to this. He travels to Malaysia and all these countries constantly, so you have to know that something's going on while he goes there," she said.
Parents and children had only nice things to say about substitute teacher Ted Bernstein, but beneath the surface, detectives say something sinister was going on.
If it weren't for Facebook, police might never have found the library of child pornography they say Bernstein had been collecting. An acquaintance of the 64-year-old teacher was looking through his personal Facebook page when a link came up that made her stop everything.
"She checked his wall and she thought, 'Oh, I wonder what Ted likes because there was a link that said he liked something,' and when she clicked on it, it was shocking," said parent Jennifer McDowell.
McDowell knows the woman who eventually alerted detectives to Bernstein's Facebook page, and she says she's seen the link.
"There were pictures of little girls, some of them in lingerie and in provocative poses," she said.
Because he hasn't officially been charged yet, King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West would not comment on Bernstein's case. But she said after reviewing the Facebook link, deputies went to a suspect's house and found more child pornography on a personal computer. While detectives are still sifting through the evidence, nothing so far points to any local students being victimized.
"We've had no indication that he's been doing anything at school, on school grounds or when he was teaching," West said.
Bernstein has been a substitute teacher in the Snoqualmie Valley School District for at least the past decade, filling in at elementary, middle and high schools. The district took him off the substitute list last month when the allegations first surfaced, and last Friday deputies arrested him.
McDowell said she considered Bernstein to be a neighborhood friend who seemed quirky but harmless, but now she questions everything she thought she knew about him.
"There's another element to this. He travels to Malaysia and all these countries constantly, so you have to know that something's going on while he goes there," she said.
