United States Attorney James T. Jacks
Northern District of Texas

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 2010
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/

HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER IN DALLAS
ARRESTED ON FEDERAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CHARGE

DALLAS — Jon Leslie Lyons, an English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, was arrested yesterday and charged in a criminal complaint with receiving child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. Lyons 44, had his initial appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeff Kaplan. He remains in custody pending his detention hearing which is set for Friday, June 11, 2010, at 1:30 p.m., before Judge Kaplan.

According to the affidavit filed with the complaint, last month a Dallas Independent School District (DISD) employee notified Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), that they had discovered possible child pornography on a DISD computer assigned to Lyons.

Soon thereafter, an ICE special agent met with the DISD employee who made the referral and viewed images of prepubescent females exposing genitalia and posing in lewd and lascivious manners, that had been recently forensically recovered from Lyon’s work computer. Several ICE special agents then met Lyons at his apartment in Dallas, near the school, and conducted a consensual interview. In that interview Lyons said that he had images of 13-16 year-old nude teens, as well as images of prepubescent females, engaged in sexually explicit conduct on his home desktop computer and Apple iPhone. He also stated that he had downloaded child pornography from the Internet to his iPhone as recently as the previous day.

“We are thankful that the Office of Homeland Security and U.S. Attorney's Office reacted so quickly after we provided them information in this case. If any parent or child has additional information that might be helpful to investigators, we ask that they contact the school or the proper authorities,” said Jon Dahlander, Dallas ISD, Director News and Information.

A federal complaint is a written statement of the essential facts of the offenses charged, and must be made under oath before a magistrate judge. A defendant is entitled to thepresumption of innocence until proven guilty. The penalty, however, for receipt of child pornography is a maximum statutory sentence, per count, of not less than five or more than 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and a lifetime of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney’s office has 30 days to present the matter to a grand jury for indictment.

This matter was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov

The matter is being investigated by ICE and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa J. Miller.

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