CASS LAKE - A former Cass Lake-Bena Middle School teacher was sentenced Monday for charges in a case in which he sent pornographic pictures of children back and forth on the Internet to other people.
Before Judge Paul Benshoof in Beltrami County District Court, Eddie Eugene Himes, 65, of Bemidji, was sentenced for four counts of felony possession of child pornography and one count of felony dissemination of child pornography.
Himes received a total of an 84-month stay of execution on a series of conditions for 12 years of supervised probation. He is subject to a 60-month conditional release on each count.
Himes must serve 150 days of probationary jail - 30 days for each count. He must abide by the Minnesota Department of Corrections, pay a $300 fine plus costs, pay a $700 polygraph fee, enter into and complete sex offender treatment, engage in individual and/or couples therapy as recommended, complete the Abel Sexual Interest Inventory, have no unsupervised contact with minors, submit to polygraph testing, take all his medications as prescribed, not use the Internet, have no possession of sexually explicit materials, submit to random searches of his person and property, submit a DNA sample, comply with predatory offender registration and remain law abiding. The person supervising his contact with minors must be approved by the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
Himes, who was an emotional and behavioral disorders teacher at Cass Lake-Bena Middle School, resigned from his position March 13.
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He was placed on paid administration leave effective Jan. 25 pending the outcome of the investigation. He had worked as an EBD teacher in the Cass Lake-Bena School District for about 12 years.
Himes was arrested Jan. 24 at his residence in Northern Township, according to the criminal complaint. Investigators from the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office secured a search warrant based on information gathered by the Delaware Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Minnesota ICAC Task Force and St. Paul Police Department.
When a search warrant was executed Jan. 24 at Himes' residence, computer forensic examiners found sexually explicit pictures of children on Himes' computer. About 20 images were downloaded to a CD and turned over as evidence.
Himes admitted to possessing the pornographic pictures of children and sending them back and forth via the Internet to people he spoke to in chat rooms.
The images obtained from Himes' computer were sent to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's Child Victim Identification Program. The CVIP identified 68 images of known child pornography where the minor child was identified and three video files of known children engaged in sexual conduct.
