Former Missouri assistant principal pleads guilty to child porn charge

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A former assistant principal at a Missouri junior high school pleaded guilty to child pornography charges, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

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Colby Fronterhouse, 41, of Springfield, pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography in federal court, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Missouri.

According to prosecutors, Fronterhouse was the assistant principal at Nixa Junior High School in Nixa in September 2020 when he used a burner phone number to text a 13-year-old boy, KOLR reported. The boy’s contact information was accessible through school records, according to the television station.

Fronterhouse was fired from his job on Feb. 8, 2021, prosecutors said.

A Christian County sheriff’s deputy was contacted by the teen and his father in September 2020, KOLR reported. According to the teen, Fronterhouse had been texting him for a week and said he was a 14-year-old girl, the television station reported.

Prosecutors said Fronterhouse encouraged the teen to send sexually explicit images of himself to the educator. According to the news release, Fronterhouse made specific requests for poses or types of images and had sexually explicit text conversations.

Officers obtained a warrant and searched Fronterhouse’s residence on Jan. 26, 2021, KOLR reported. Authorities said they found evidence linking Fronterhouse’s cellphone to the burner account, according to the television station.

Fronterhouse can be sentenced to a minimum of five years in federal prison, according to the news release. The maximum sentence is 20 years in federal prison without parole.

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