A former Brooklyn teacher has received a seven-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges involving the sexual exploitation of minors. The Brooklyn District Attorney's office announced that the ex-math teacher used social media to coerce teens into sending him sexually explicit images. According to a statement on the Brooklyn District Attorney’s website, the 38-year-old Harlem resident, Winston Nguyen, posed as a teenage boy on Snapchat to engage with children from four independent schools in Brooklyn.
In what the District Attorney Eric Gonzalez termed "a sickening betrayal of trust," Nguyen was sentenced by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Phillip Tisne to seven years behind bars and 10 years of post-release supervision. “This was a sickening betrayal of trust by a schoolteacher who solicited students into sending him graphic and nude photos. Today’s sentencing holds him accountable for his actions while sparing the young and vulnerable victims from having to relive this emotional abuse in court. I commend the prosecutors and investigators who brought this defendant to justice, and the young survivors who bravely stepped forward,” Gonzalez said. The former teacher must also register as a sex offender upon his release, as per the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
The defendant's illicit activities were discovered through an investigation that linked two Snapchat accounts, hunterkristoff and haircutbongos, to IP addresses associated with Nguyen’s Harlem residence. The accounts were used to transmit nude images and videos that showed a teenage boy in sexual acts and to solicit equivalent content from the victims, who's ages ranged between 13 and 15 years old. These crimes spanned from October 2022 until May 2024.
The thorough investigation, which included digital forensic analysis, led to Nguyen's arrest and subsequent guilty plea to one count of use of a child in a sexual performance as a sexually motivated felony and five counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Senior Assistant District Attorney Daniel Brian Newcombe led the prosecution with the support of Assistant District Attorney Kevin O’Donnell, Deputy Bureau Chief, and Assistant District Attorney Olatokunbo Olaniyan, First Deputy Bureau Chief, under the overall supervision of Assistant District Attorney Miss Gregory, Bureau Chief.
