The Orange County Child Exploitation Task Force arrested a private Irvine high school English teacher/coach late last week on charges involving sexually explicit text messages and photos he allegedly sent a female student.
The task force–including officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD) and the Irvine Police Department–took 25-year-old Dominic John Witter into custody April 5 when he arrived at a Laguna Hills pizza parlor in hopes of meeting the girl, according to a government press statement.
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Investigators claim the teacher at Crean Lutheran High School wanted the student to send him nude photographs of herself.
Claude Arnold, a special agent with HSI in Los Angeles, said the arrest is a reminder
that task force investigators have “zero tolerance” for people who sexually exploit
their “special access” to young people.
OCSD records show that Witter, who coached the girl's track team and the boy's soccer team, posted bail after his arrest and was released from the Orange County Jail.
Local prosecutors are expected to file formal charges against Witter this week, according to the government's statement.
No word yet on how Witter will plead or if he has selected a criminal defense lawyer.
Authorities are asking anyone with potential additional information about Witter's conduct to call ICE's toll-free, 24-hour tip line at 1-866-DHS-2ICE.
It is illegal for an adult to have any type of sexual relationship with a person who is under 18.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
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