Details emerge in principal's child porn arrest
Spessard Holland Elementary School Principal Ricky Sheppard had photos of students on his home computer alongside downloaded child pornography movies.
The photos appeared to be from a Spessard Holland school brochure, according to the federal complaint used to arrest the 59-year-old Melbourne man last week.
As documented in the federal complaint, Sheppard first caught the attention of investigators when he downloaded a 3-minute 50-second video of a little boy being raped by an adult male.
Child porn charges lead to change in school district
Agent Michael Spadafora of the Brevard County Sheriff's office -- also a task force agent with the Department of Homeland Security -- initiated an investigation in May. He traced the IP address to Sheppard's home and then confirmed the longtime Brevard Public Schools employee, who also had worked for the Satellite Beach and Indialantic Police Departments in the past, was the only resident of the home.
In mid-May agents conducted surveillance on Sheppard's home, most notably the wireless internet connections that were available nearby. Agents noted the connections and they were all secured, meaning the only way to access them was to enter a password.
At that point a warrant was set up for Sheppard's arrest Friday (June 3). They interviewed Sheppard before searching his home and his computers, and asked about the images he had downloaded. He said he would not talk about that and then refused to answer questions, according to the arresting document.
Agents inspected two desktop computers in the home and found more than 1,100 files containing child pornography including 14 movies containing young boys between the ages of 8 and 12 engaging in various sexual acts with men, other minors and themselves, according to the federal complaint against Sheppard.
Brevard principal arrested in child-porn investigation
Sheppard was once reprimanded when he was teaching at Gemini Elementary School in 1999 for speaking inappropriately with a 6-year-old boy and showering him with gifts. He was later promoted to assistant principal at various schools before being named principal of the Satellite Beach school last year. The district said it is changing its process for choosing new principals to ensure the superintendent sees any reprimand letters in the candidate's file. That had not been the case.
Investigators believe Sheppard may have done more than download illegal movies and images and are searching for potential local victims.
There is a detention hearing in the case Wednesday (June 8) in Federal Court in Orlando.
Contact Torres at 321-242-3684 or at jtorres@floridatoday.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter @johnalbertorres or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/FTjohntorres.