A man who taught at a middle school in Southbridge was arrested by the FBI Tuesday and charged with trying to create child pornography by allegedly paying the operators of a live streaming Internet site in the Philippines to have children perform sex acts while he watched.
Scott W. Peeler was arrested at his Worcester home, where he allegedly admitted using the screen name “wolfman124” during online chats with sites based in the Philippines where operators have children perform sexual acts once viewers pay via the Web, according to an affidavit by an FBI agent.
The Southbridge school system Tuesday confirmed that Peeler was on the staff at the middle school for the just-completed school year, but declined further comment and would not say how long he was employed by the Central Massachusetts community. Peeler identified himself as a middle school teacher when the FBI interviewed him this week.
Peeler allegedly told FBI agents when they searched his home on Trinity Avenue in Worcester Tuesday that he lived in the duplex, which he owned, with an adult son and a 4-year-old child.
According to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Jennifer L. Weidlich
Weidlich called it an “emerging trend of sexual exploitation of children by individuals exploiting children in foreign countries, like the Philippines, via Web cameras such that individuals remotely produce sexually explicit material of minors’’ for sale through live-streaming and Web-based pay programs.
The sites Peeler allegedly used were accessed through a Yahoo Messenger account with payments being handled by xoom.com. The FBI said the investigation that allegedly led to Peeler began when xoom.com was alerted to a payment from someone in San Francisco to a Philippines Web address that appeared to show a child committing a sex act, according to the FBI.
Yahoo’s internal electronic crimes unit then identified Philippines-based sites apparently engaging in production of child pornography and alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, leading to the FBI inquiry, according to the FBI.
The FBI obtained transcripts of the Yahoo webcams and tracked the Internet address back to Peeler’s Worcester home, according to the FBI. Peeler “admitted that he was the user of the wolfman124 account, but claimed that he had never actually purchased any of the videos described in the chats,’’ Weidlich wrote in the affidavit.
But the FBI alleged that “preliminary forensic review has revealed the presence of child pornography on Peeler’s electronic devices and/or computers.’’
The affidavit includes extensive portions of transcripts showing conversations that allegedly took place between Peeler and what appears to be two different Philippines-based live streaming sites in 2013 and 2014 that he accessed at least four times. The children potentially ranged in age from 4 to 14 years old, the FBI alleged.
Peeler is currently charged with attempted receipt of child pornography and attempted enticement and coercion of a minor, according to federal court records.
Peeler was scheduled to appear in US District Court in Worcester Tuesday.
John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.