Prosecutors said the teacher, who worked for Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, lured students from four different schools to share explicit images with him via social media.
A former teacher at an elite private high school in Brooklyn was charged on Thursday with soliciting sexually explicit images of children, prosecutors said.
The teacher, Winston Nguyen, who was arrested in front of students last month, taught math at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights. Between October 2022 and May 2024, Mr. Nguyen pretended at least 11 times to be a teenager and “fellow student” on social media, during which he enticed or tried to entice teenage students to send him “images of nudity and sexual performances,” according to prosecutors at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.
Mr. Nguyen, 37, who lives in Harlem, used two different Snapchat accounts to exchange messages with the children — five girls and one boy, all between the ages of 13 and 15 — prosecutors said. The teenagers attended four private schools in Brooklyn: Saint Ann’s, Poly Prep Country Day School, Berkeley Carroll School and Packer Collegiate Institute.
Mr. Nguyen was charged with use of a child in a sexual performance, promoting a sexual performance by a child and disseminating indecent material to a minor, among other charges.
Frank Rothman, Mr. Nguyen’s lawyer, said his client turned himself in to prosecutors in Brooklyn on Thursday morning.
“We arranged for his surrender with the prosecutors and detectives,” Mr. Rothman said. “He showed up and will be processed like any other defendant.”
Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said the investigation into Mr. Nguyen had “revealed extremely disturbing conduct,” adding, “the fact that he was a teacher and a trusted figure among students make these allegations even more troubling.”
On one occasion, Mr. Nguyen paid a child to send a sexually explicit video to him, according to prosecutors. He also shared explicit photos he had received with other children, prosecutors said.
Before he was hired at Saint Ann’s, Mr. Nguyen was charged with grand larceny after he was accused of stealing more than $300,000 from an older couple he was hired to care for, according to news reports.
Mr. Nguyen spent about five months in jail before being sentenced to time served, according to news reports.
Saint Ann’s did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Nguyen is expected to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.
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