Burbank Teacher Accused Of Sex With Former Student Pleads Guilty To Federal Child Pornography Charges
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — A former Burbank elementary school teacher pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges he produced child pornography of a 15-year-old.
In a plea deal, 55-year-old Sean David Sigler of Burbank agreed to plead guilty to two counts of production of child pornography. A federal judge set his sentencing date for Dec. 5.
Federal prosecutors say Sigler became involved in the girl's life after she left his classroom and used his position as the girls' former fifth-grade teacher, mentor and father figure to win their trust and "exploited that trust to gain sexual access" to her. Over the course of 15 months, prosecutors say Sigler regularly took the girl home, where he gave her alcohol and pills, then photographed and filmed his sexual activity with her. The girl was just 15 years old when Sigler began having sex with her, prosecutors said.
In his plea agreement, federal officials say Sigler admitted to creating sexually explicit videos and photos of the girl when she was 15 years old. Some of the images involved sadomasochistic conduct and digitally editing photos of her body to have the face of a different underage former students. Investigators found photos and images of sexual acts with the girls, along with thousands of child-porn images of unknown minors, non-pornographic photos of young girls in his classroom and images he took from former students' social media accounts, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Sigler was arrested in January 2018 after a former student reported she had a sexual encounter with him when she was 15 and later indicted on federal charges in the case.
He most recently taught fifth grade at Burbank Unified School District's Bret Harte Elementary before being fired after his arrest. Sigler also worked as a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District from March 1998 to June 2016.
As part of Sigler's plea agreement, he agreed to forfeit $2271, 506 in cash that was the proceeds from the sale of the home where Sigler produced the child pornography.
When he is sentenced, Sigler faces a statutory maximum sentence of 60 years in federal prison. Each count of production of child pornography also carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in federal prison.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
