Ian Milam, a sixth grade math teacher at Cosgrove Middle School, in Spencerport, New York outside of Rochester, was arrested last week. He was charged with producing, receiving, and possessing child pornography, as well as transfering obscene material to a minor, according to a Justice Department press release.
Milam “created two Snapchat accounts … to have inappropriate conversation with numerous users who identified themselves as minor females,” according to a complaint filed by an FBI agent in the Western District Court of New York.
Milam came onto the police’s radar after the Greece, New York police department got a report that a sexually explicit video had been discovered on a twelve-year-old girl’s phone, the complaint said. The complaint recounts how the girl said she’d got the video from her friend, who was eleven. The video was from somebody they knew as “Matt Eckler” who claimed to be a high school student at Spencerport School District, the complaint said. He’d sent the girls photos of his penis and videos of himself masturbating, according to the complaint.
The Greece Police Department (GPD) confirmed with the Spencerport School District that there was nobody called Matt Eckler who attended the school, according to the complaint. Greece PD then executed search warrants on two Snapchat accounts that the girls told them about, “matteckler” and “mikeywikey37.” In the accounts, they found photos of a boy who they managed to identify through “open source and social media applications,” the complaint says.
When they interviewed the boy he denied sending any photographs and said he had no knowledge of those accounts. The Snapchat account he did have was under his real name, which isn’t Matt Eckler, the police explained in the complaint.
Part of the data provided to the police by the warrant revealed that the “matteckler” SnapChat account had been accessed 1,431 times, the complaint said. Between April 10 and June 14, the account was accessed every single day.
The complaint included exchanges between Milam and girls where he begged for sexually explicit images from multiple users.
“You look wayyyyyyyy older than you are,” Milam said in one.
“I’m only 13,” one user replied.
In the chat exchanges provided by the complaint, Milam claimed to be either 15 or 16.
“Why you sound like a grown man” one of the users asked at one point.
In one exchange under the username mikewikey37, Milam allegedly begged for sexually explicit images from a user who identified herself as 12 years old, according to the complaint. He also asked her to stop saving images he’d sent her, saying “your [sic] going to get me in trouble.”
“you could start by not only asking for nudes and acting like im a human,” she said in one exchange.
“And we sent nudes to each other and had fun so that’s not fair,” Milam replied.
“I didn’t have fun,” the girl replied. “i was uncomfortable,” she said and “you basically made me.”
“i thought you would break up with me if i didn’t,” she continued.
On Aug. 9, the FBI and GPD executed a search warrant at Milam’s home. Milam was there and was interviewed on his front porch by an FBI agent and a GPD investigator.
There, Milam confirmed that he owned the Snapchat accounts, that he used the accounts to communicate with females, and that the phone number linked to the account was his number. He also confirmed that he used somebody’s else’s images to impersonate them online.
The girl who told Milam that he “basically made” her send images to him sent seven images to him on May 7, according to the complaint. The FBI and GPD identified her parents and confirmed that she appeared in them, according to court documents.
“It was later determined that [Milam] … was [her] … 6th grade math teacher during the 2022-2023 school year,” the complaint concludes.
Milam didn’t respond to questions about whether he disputed anything in the complaint.
Local media reported that his lawyer waived a detention hearing and asked to look over the evidence to decide whether to start discussing a plea deal.
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