TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Ex-St. Pete Teacher Gets 6 Years In Child Porn Case

ADVERTISEMENT

By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 15, 2008

TAMPA - Werner Bloch says he led a double life.

The former teacher, dormitory supervisor and tennis coach at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg had a secret habit: viewing and trading child pornography on the Internet.

Bloch, 41, was sentenced this morning to six years in federal prison, about 10 years less than provided in federal sentencing guidelines, after two defense experts testified he is unlikely to break the law again.

A former student, Brian Vogel, 24, told U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew he knew Bloch for seven years. He lived next to him in a dormitory for three to four years and went to the mall with him on weekends.

"I never would have imagined anything like this," said Vogel, who said he just graduated from college with a degree in criminology. Bloch, he said, "taught me values I still carry with me. … He has just always been an incredible person."

Bonnie Saxman said Bloch taught both her children and was a family friend. They traveled together to the U.S. Open, she said. "I've never seen anything improper at all, never heard anyone else even suggest there was a problem whatsoever."

But, as Bloch tells it, for eight or nine years, he was viewing child pornography on his computer. It was, he said, "my drug," the place he could escape his problems.

Bloch was arrested in 2007 after agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement found him as part of a nationwide investigation of commercial child pornography Web sites. The Web site that agents targeted was called "Home Collection" and sold monthly memberships for $79.95 that allowed patrons to access more than a dozen Web sites containing images and videos of child pornography.

Bloch was caught ordering a subscription to the "Boys Say Go" Web site, according to his plea agreement. That site had images of prepubescent boys engaged in sexual activities with one another and adult men.

A federal prosecutor said agents found 16,000 images of child pornography on Bloch's home computer.

Bucklew, who sentenced a different child pornography defendant to 40 years in prison on Thursday, said Bloch's actions were "despicable" but that he deserved the lower sentence, partly because of the two experts' testimony that he is unlikely to offend again. "There is a need to protect the public," she said. The judge also noted that the child pornography involved real children who were victimized.

On the other hand, "you've never, at least in the evidence I have in front of me, acted out" against children.

Bloch insisted he didn't do anything inappropriate to students during his 14 years at Farragut. "Nobody was ever in jeopardy of me losing control and doing anything to them, because those kids were like my sons and daughters," he said.

"Some people will think I got that job to have a pool of kids. That was never, ever my intent."

Bucklew said she didn't buy that. There was some connection, she said, between Bloch's chosen career and his interest in child pornography. She said she didn't know which came first.

Academy spokeswoman Alison Lescarbeau, who was reached by phone after the sentencing hearing, said the school conducted an investigation after Bloch's arrest and determined no school equipment had been used improperly. Parents immediately were notified of the arrest, she said, and asked to contact the school if there were any concerns about Bloch's interaction with students. No one, she said, raised any concerns.

"There was no determination of inappropriate contact with students," she said.

"All I can say is Admiral Farragut Academy is a very tight knit community," Lescarbeau said. "We are a family, and we were very saddened by the news of someone that was a member of our family. It's certainly difficult to process."

Bloch's therapist, Robert Whitford, testified that Bloch has obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression. Whitford said Bloch is a pedophile who has not had improper contact with children.

"It really is an extraordinary case in that he was there 14 years and there is no evidence of any contact," Whitford said. "There was never any overtures toward a kid. That's remarkable."

Asked by Bucklew how he knew that, Whitford backed away from the statement. "I don't know if he did or not."

Whitford testified that Bloch, through therapy, has changed his thinking to change his behavior. "He's very remorseful, and his depression, for example, is part of that." Bloch, he said, "needs structured and sophisticated treatment."

"I'm so sorry for what I've done," Bloch said this morning in court. "I'm so happy that I'm not going through that computer any more. …That is over. I self-destructed myself."

Farragut, he said, "was my life. I still miss it so much. I know I can't go back."

"I know I need to be punished," he said.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT