Former Howard County Substitute Teacher Arrested Again On Child Porn Charges
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (WJZ)—Howard County Police have filed additional charges against a former long-term substitute teacher in an ongoing child pornography and sex abuse investigation.
Police say 43-year-old Jeremy Sykes, of Columbia, who was a long-term substitute at Folly Quarter Middle School in Ellicott City from October 2013 to January 2014, was arrested Friday and charged with 14 counts of sexual abuse of a minor and 50 counts of production of child pornography.
Detectives say Sykes digitally altered images of child and adult pornography by using some students' yearbook photos to replace the facial images of children in the pornography.
Investigators identified 18 teenage girls in the altered images, 14 of whom were Folly Quarter students. The four others Sykes knew outside of school, not through his role as a teacher.
Police found a total of 50 digitally altered pornographic images believed to have been created by Sykes using the girls' yearbook photos.
Detectives have contacted all parents or guardians of the involved students. They have not discovered any actual pornographic images of the students photographed by Sykes, only images of their faces imported into photos from the internet. They also have not found evidence at this time that any of the altered photos were disseminated beyond Sykes' personal access.
Sykes was initially charged in January after police received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that numerous uploads of child pornography had been traced to the same user on two separate computers in Howard County. One computer was traced to Sykes' home and the other to the Howard County Public School System, where Sykes' was teaching at Folly Quarter.
At that time, the school system banned Sykes from entering any HCPSS property.
Computer forensics detectives are continuing to analyze additional electronic devices seized from Sykes to determine whether any other students' photos were affected. If more information is discovered, parents of affected students will be notified.
Anyone with new or additional information should contact detectives at 410-313-STOP.
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