A former Portland Public Schools employee pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexual exploitation of a minor.
Benjamin Conroy, 33, was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a child at Ocean Avenue Elementary School in October after police received a citizen’s report. He faces 15 to 30 years in federal prison, with at least five years of federal supervision upon his release.
A federal grand jury indicted Conroy on one count of child sexual exploitation and one count of transporting child pornography.
Benjamin Conroy, an educational technician who worked at Ocean Avenue Elementary School in Portland, appeared in court on Oct. 15, 2021, via Zoom. Image from court video
U.S. District Judge Nancy Thoreson agreed Wednesday afternoon to accept Conroy’s new plea, ordering him to continue serving on the second charge while he awaits sentencing.
Before accepting the plea, Thoreson told Conroy to verify the version of events presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheila Sawyer on Monday. A citizen stopped by the Portland Police Department on Oct. 5, 2021, to say he received “numerous disturbing images and messages on his cell phone” from an unknown person on the Grindr dating app, according to a prosecutor’s account. That citizen told police he believed an unknown person had sexually assaulted a young girl.
The unidentified person who sent the messages, known as “Str8 Vers Anon” on Grindr, was identified as Conroy and arrested by Portland police a week later, according to Sawyer’s file. The filing also revealed that the images Conroy posted on the app were screenshots from a video Conroy took of himself on Oct. 1, 2021, of sexually assaulting a 7-year-old autistic student.
“Is there any respect in which you disagree with anything in the prosecution’s version?” Thoreson asked Conroy on Wednesday.
“No,” Conroy said.
“Is the information in the prosecution’s version true from your own personal knowledge?”
“yes.”
The hearing did not reveal any new information about the allegations of abuse against the two students, which were briefly outlined in affidavits filed last fall in U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine. Conroy will not face further charges for the alleged incidents.
Conroy has worked with children on the autism spectrum for more than eight years, both at home and in schools, the affidavit states.
The Portland School District hired him the summer before he was arrested. The district said in an interview with the Portland Press Herald last fall that Conroy previously worked for Casa, which provides behavioral health support for schools, and before that for District School District 22 in Hampden and District School District 2 in Hallowell.
Conroy’s second federal charge is related to his use of Grindr in connection with the transportation of child pornography.
“Specifically, the defendant used the Internet and dating app Grindr to upload and transmit digital images of a minor performing sexually suggestive acts,” the Nov. 18 indictment states. Using Grindr, Conroy was transporting the images from Maine to an out-of-state computer server.
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