Teacher accused of making child porn scrapbooks, bringing them to school
A middle school teacher at American Preparatory Academy in Utah was arrested on Thursday after administrators told police he accessed child pornography in the classroom.
Michael Scott Hatfield faces seven felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and three misdemeanor counts of accessing pornographic material on school property, KSTU reports.
Police said they reviewed surveillance video from Hatfield's classroom and observed three instances when Hatfield covered up the camera.
Though the lens of the camera was covered, the system still captured audio suggesting the teacher was masturbating at those times.
According to the probable cause statement released by police, school administrators also provided police with a black bag retrieved from Hatfield's classroom, which contained commercial pornography DVD, a lotion bottle and two photo albums containing pornographic photos of both children and adults.
The photo albums contained cutouts and photos of naked girls arranged like a collage. The probable cause statement said, "each page was unique depicting a level of meticulous attention in the creation and compilation of the album."
During a search of Hatfield's home on April 22, police said they found "evidence pertinent to the manufacture of the scrapbook."
Hatfield was arrested and booked into the Salt Lake County Metro Jail. His bail is set at $100,000 due to his position of trust as a middle school teacher and the "risk to the children" that is posed, KSTU reports.
