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February 22, 2005

Former Portsmouth Teacher Receives 45 Year Prison Term on Child Pornography Charges

February 22, 2005

A former Portsmouth school teacher was formally sentenced to 45 years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to 24 counts of child abuse and pornography.
Kelly Karl Bowen pled guilty back in December.

Under a plea agreement reached with prosecutors, Bowen also agreed to help authorities identify all of the victims so they can get proper counseling.

Bowen's alleged crimes date back as far as 2002, and prosecutors said the 24 counts involved 24 separate individuals. The individual charges included forcible sodomy, using an electronic means to procure minors for sexually explicit material, producing sexually explicit material, and possession of child pornography.

Authorities say Bowen, also a former dance instruction, was able to get computer e-mail addresses of children, then posed as a teen girl in Internet chat rooms and was able to get kids to send him nude pictures of themselves. Authorities say he had sex with one of the children. Just how many total children were involved, authorities can't say.

Bowen was arrested last June 23rd at this home in the 100 block of Oxford Drive in Portsmouth following an investigation by the Virginia Attorney General, Portsmouth and Gloucester Police.

At that time, he was charged with nine counts of possession of child pornography and one count of computer solicitation of a minor for sexual exploitation. More charges were added later.

According to the state attorney general's office, Bowen is a former teacher in the Portsmouth public school system and at the time of his initial arrest, was employed as an instructional specialist with Portsmouth public schools. Bowen was fired by the school system in August.

Police said in June they became aware of Bowen when a Gloucester police officer - working undercover online to catch sexual predators - came in contact with him in an online chat room June 17. Prosecutors say Bowen used the screen name 'HOTLILFLGURL.'

With additional information obtained through a court order in Gloucester County Circuit Court, the Gloucester County Sheriff's Office obtained a list of additional America Online (AOL) screen names also believed to belong to Bowen:

SEEKELLDAZZLE2
DASTARISOUT
KBSOCIALSTUDIES
HOTLILFLGURL
DOINGYOUWELL
SEXXICHICKNVA
DANCEDYNAMICSVA
HOTTYCHEEERGIRL
NONRATED
NONRATED2

For tips on keeping your children safe while they're online, visit the websites below:

GetNetWise.Org

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

SafeKids.Com

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Microsoft

Virginia Attorney General 'Safe Surfing' Website for Kids

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Posted by Nancy at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)