Ex-Covina Teacher Gets 23.5 Years in Prison in Child Sex and Pornography Case

John David Boyle, 50, who taught eighth-grade English and coached football at Royal Oak Middle School, pleaded guilty in March to four federal counts, including inducing a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity and production/transmission of child pornography.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson said the case could be summed up "in a word -- horrendous. The damage done to the victims is incalculable."

Wilson also sentenced Boyle to lifetime supervised release, saying the defendant has "indicated a propensity to carry on with this conduct."

Boyle, using the screen name "JrHighCoach," met his first underage victim in an Internet chat forum in April 2013 and persuaded the boy to have sex with him.

Boyle admitted picking the teen up and driving him 40 miles away to a secluded area of a park, where he brought him to a heavily wooded area, away from the main road, and sexually assaulted him.

A day later, the Glendora resident met a second 14-year-old boy on the Internet and, again using the screen name "JrHighCoach," persuaded the teen to engage in a pornographic live-stream webcam video and chat over Skype.

Boyle "is a predator," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas A. Trutanich said outside court. "He used his classroom to further his sexual desires and went so far as to groom certain students for molestation."

A few months after the webcam incident with the second boy, Boyle sent dozens of photographs of pre-teen and teenage boys engaging in sexual activity to another person.

He also unwittingly sent text messages to an undercover agent in which he discussed an eighth-grader as "a boy I really like" who is "so cute," but one with whom he had not had sexual contact.

The undercover agent texted back: "I'm sure you will bring him along just right," which prosecutors said was a reference to the well-known "grooming" behavior of child predators.

Boyle answered: "I'm trying. He's hugged me, made jokes about kisses. And he's texting me!," the transcript shows.

The next day, Boyle met with the undercover agent in his classroom at the school, believing the purpose of the meeting was to trade and watch child pornography together. When the undercover agent arrived and presented Boyle with child porn, he took possession of it and other agents immediately entered the classroom to interview him.

—City News Service