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Contact: Jim Cross
PHONE: 316-269-6481
FAX:      316-269-6420

         Sept. 8, 2008

FORMER TOPEKA ART TEACHER SENTENCED TO 7 YEARS ON CHILD PORN CHARGES

TOPEKA, KAN. – A former elementary school art teacher with Auburn-Washburn Unified School District 437 was sentenced to 85 months on child pornography charges, U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren announced Monday.

In June, Coen C. Potts, 37, Topeka, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography.

In his plea, Potts admitted that investigators found thousands of images of child pornography on a computer in his apartment. He obtained most of the images by joining groups on the Internet for collectors and distributors of child pornography.

According to court records, Potts became the subject of an investigation in September 2006 when investigators learned that he had told a woman he met through a telephone dating service that he would like to have children with her that he could “deflower.” When he met the woman in person, he showed her images of child pornography. He later told her he had been interested in photos of that kind for a long time and he had been “unsuccessful with women virtually my whole life.”

U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Kenney for their work on the case.

This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, the U.S. Department of Justice’s program to protect children from exploitation and sexual predators.