Retired Broward County Public Schools employee John Rafferty was arrested Tuesday after police reportedly found several child pornography photos mixed in with his family photos.
Rafferty, 74, is charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography and one count of compiling child pornography on a computer. He is being held at Broward County Jail on $27,500 bond. The press did not name an attorney for him.
According to the arrest affidavit, the Internet Crimes Against Children task force (ICAC) received four tips in January about a user who had uploaded child pornography on four different occasions. The task force subpoenaed Comcast with the IP address of the user and traced the user’s location to a home in Oakland Park where Rafferty reportedly lives with his wife.
Police acquired a search warrant and raided Rafferty’s home on Tuesday. They searched Rafferty’s computer and reportedly found several child pornography photos, including one showing a tied up 12-year-old girl bent over a chair, mixed in with his family photos. Investigators also found child pornography on six external hard drives and some CD disks.
“Also located inside the office room were several notebooks, which John Rafferty admitted were search terms that he uses to search for things,” the affidavit read. “These notebooks are written in John Rafferty’s handwriting and contained terms such as: Perv, Kids, Schgls, underage.adm.ygo, jailbait, and jap.schoolgirls.”
Records show that Rafferty worked with the public schools system from 1984 until 1999 when he retired. Information about the type of work he performed wasn’t readily available.
Another child pornography incident was reported in Deerfield Beach last week. Gymnastics instructor Hassan Jawad was arrested on February 28 after investigators allegedly found child pornography on his personal computer.
Jawad, 37, is charged with 8 counts of child pornography and one count of compiling child pornography. It is unclear if he has acquired the services of an attorney.
According to the arrest report, investigators from the Broward Sheriff’s Office received a tip from ICAC about an IP address that was being used to upload and share child porn. The address was purportedly traced to Jawad’s home in Deerfield Beach.
Police executed a search warrant on February 28 and interviewed Jawad, who reportedly admitted to using a search program to view child pornography “out of curiosity.” He also admitted to having pictures and videos of child pornography that depicted boys between the ages of 7 and 13 engaged in sexual activity, the report read.
Before his arrest, Jawad worked as a gymnastics teacher at Twisters Gymnastics in Boca Raton. The gymnastics center released a statement claiming that Jawad never received any complaints about his behavior with minors. He allegedly passed several background checks before he was hired in 2017.
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