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Principal Makes Bail On Child Porn Charges

News Channel 8 image by KATE CALDWELL

John "Jack" Stelmack walks out of jail after posting bond Saturday.

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By BILLY TOWNSEND and MARY SHEDDEN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 23, 2007

Updated: 12/22/2007 10:33 pm

BARTOW - A Lakeland elementary school principal arrested on child pornography charges Friday was released from jail Saturday after posting $50,000 bail.

"It's all a mistake," John "Jack" Stelmack said to reporters outside the jail.

Stelmack, principal of Lakeland's Scott Lake Elementary, was arrested by Polk County sheriff's investigators Friday after a briefcase in his school office was found to contain digitally altered photographs of young girls and childlike naked women, investigators said. He faces five counts of possessing child pornography.

At a hearing Saturday morning, 10th Circuit Judge Jeff McKibben set bail at $50,000, reducing it by half from the $100,000 set Friday.

During the court hearing, Stelmack's wife, Kathleen, spoke about his educational and professional achievements; Assistant State Attorney Brad Copley objected that the material was irrelevant to his questions.

Attorneys discussed with the judge how much of the evidence was found inside a briefcase Stelmack kept in his school office.

Stelmack was arrested Friday at his Lakeland home by sheriff's deputies. They started an investigation Wednesday, after Polk school district officials found the images in the briefcase, school and law enforcement officials said.

The school district had been investigating Stelmack since Dec. 14, after faculty members complained about Stelmack's level of affection shown toward some students. He has been suspended with pay since that investigation began.

More details about Stelmack's work history in New York state emerged Saturday.

Stelmack's resignation as principal of Ellicott Elementary in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., was accepted Feb. 28, 2006, according to 2006 meeting minutes from the Orchard Park Central School District Board of Education.

The resignation was to take effect on June 30 of that year. No reason is given in the minutes for Stelmack's resignation.

The decision came one day after the announcement that a bus driver at that school was arrested on charges of possession of child pornography obtained over the Internet, according to the minutes.

It is not clear in the minutes whether Stelmack's resignation was related to the bus driver's arrest.

The 2006 Buffalo case involved bus driver Terryl Noyes, whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents accused of downloading sexually explicit images of children thought to be 10 to 12 years old. Noyes was an employee of the bus company that provided service to Buffalo area schools.

According to federal agents, Noyes admitted he would trade with others the images that came from Russian and U.S. Internet sites. He was sentenced in March to more than five years in federal prison, according to news reports.

A criminal background check conducted by the Polk school district on Stelmack revealed only a 1986 arrest for drunken driving. The charge later was reduced to reckless driving.

Ron Ciranna, head of the school district's human resources, said the district hired Stelmack without receiving his full personnel records from New York.

It was a mistake that violated school district policy, which is to review all such records prior to hiring a principal, Ciranna said.

New York requires an employee to sign a release form before personnel records can be turned over for examination, Ciranna said.

Several months ago, before the investigation, Ciranna said the district discovered that it had not seen Stelmack's New York records because he'd never signed a release form.

The school district obtained a release form and requested Stelmack's records, though not all have yet arrived. Ciranna said Friday that the school district had received nothing so far to suggest wrongdoing like that Stelmack is accused of at Scott Lake.

Tribune reporter Mike Wells and researcher Diane Grey contributed to this report. Reporter Mary Shedden can be reached at (813) 259-7365 or mshedden @tampatrib.com.

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