A Florida high school teacher, tennis and soccer coach and youth pastor has been charged with 408 counts of possession of child pornography after investigators found disturbing images hidden on his cellphone in a "vault" disguised as a calculator app.
According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, lewd photos of boys and girls were found on Shawn Fitzgerald's cellphone. He is being held at Polk County Jail with bail set at over $2 million, reports said.
"A man entrusted with the education and guidance of so many children, working closely with them, and betraying that trust in such a heinous way," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. "Sadly, people who possess child porn are out there, all over the world," the sheriff said according to a Miami Herald report.
Some of the acts the investigators uncovered include those from children as young as 10 months old who were engaged in an "illicit, horrible, conduct as a baby and all the way up to the early teens," Judd said.
Fitzgerald came under investigation after the sheriff's office received a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that said a KIK Messenger app was used Feb. 20 to upload a 20-second video depicting a young girl engaged in pornographic acts, The Ledger reported.
"He's a bad turkey who's going to spend Thanksgiving in the county jail," Judd said this past weekend.
The 46-year-old Fitzgerald told investigators he used the app to save photos in a "vault" from an extramarital affair. He said he couldn't remember the password to give detectives access. But a forensic examination of his cellphone uncovered 408 files showing child pornography, the sheriff's office said.
