Porn | East Meadow School Teacher Sentenced On Child Porn Charges

An East Meadow resident and former private school teacher was sentenced recently to probation after pleading guilty on child porn charges.

John Spring, 59, of East Meadow, was sentenced May 11 tothree years of probation including 180 days of electronic monitoring for sex offenders, which mandates that computer monitoring software be installed on the offender's computer, according to Chris Munzing, a spokesperson for Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice.

"He [Spring] pleaded guilty to one count of sexual performance by a child and that satisfied the entire indictment," Munzing said.

Spring, who had taught seventh and eighth grade science at Trinity Lutheran School in Hicksville since 1974, was arrested in August 2009 by Nassau County Police and federal agents and was charged with 12 counts of possession of a sexual performance by a child. He could have faced up to four years in prison.

In August 2007, Spring's "unusual behavior" at the pool in Eisenhower Park caught the attention of an agent from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, who lived nearby and was swimming at the pool. Authorities said the agent observed Spring, who was not dressed in swim attire, follow young boys into the locker room.

After the unidentified ICE agent questioned a lifeguard at the pool, who confirmed Spring's routine visits and consistent "suspicious" observations of young boys, the agency launched a probe.

A spokesperson for ICE said the agency routinely investigates child pornography cases and that it often prioritizes "exploitation investigations involving subjects in positions of trust over their minor victims."

According to the Nassau DA's office, in November 2007 federal agents approached Spring at his home in East Meadow, where he told agents of his attraction to teenage boys and indicated that his home computer might contain images of a sexual nature.

The agents subsequently recovered 39 sexual images of underage boys from Spring's personal computer. Following a review of the images by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for any previously identified children, the case was referred to local authorities in early 2009 when no matches were found.

Spring's attorney of record, Bruce Barket of Garden City, did not return repeated calls for comment. However, shortly after his client's arrest in 2009, Barket was skeptical of Spring's comments to federal agents.

"I doubt that my client said to anybody on the face of the Earth that he had a sexual interest in children," Barket told Newsday . "This is the first I've heard of the whole aquatic center [episode]."

Spring resigned from Trinity Lutheran School in December 2007, just after investigators asked to examine his work computer for pornography. None was found.

Officials at Trinity Lutheran School declined to comment on the case.