A middle school teacher in Pennsylvania catfished teenage boys online, including many of his own students, to manipulate them into sending him sexually explicit photos, federal officials say.
Andrew Wolf, 42, taught 8th grade math at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy — an elite private school in Philadelphia — while secretly targeting teen boys online, USA Today reported.
Wolf Made Fake Social Media Accounts to Impersonate Minor Girls
Wolf used multiple fake social media accounts and contacted his victims while posing as teenage girls as part of an "elaborate" catfishing scheme, according to a Feb. 17 release by the United State's Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Wold which they impersonated minor girls" to entice their victims to self-produce and send them sexually explicit images. In one instance, Wolf and Strange tried to pressure a student to go into the bathroom at school and record themself masturbating, the paper reported.
Wolf Shared the Footage with Pedophiles Seeking Child Porn
The educator also compiled spreadsheets of his students social media accounts to share with pedophiles federal investigators found.
Wolf quickly began expressing a sexual interest in his students – who ranged in age from 13 to 15 – in online conversations with men interested in child pornography. He shared photos of what he described as third and fourth graders at the school, appending a message to the group: "Worth raping."
Wolf was also in close contact with a person he met online, 20-year-old Kray Strange, who was a resident in Carthage, New York. From May 2020 to Oct. 2021, he shared explicit photos with Strange, and personal information about his students so Strange could prey upon them, the release said.
Strange then spent hours communicating over encrypted messaging apps, collecting explicit photos and videos of young boys and writing short stories detailing horrific sexual assaults of children that he posted on internet forums, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Wolf Sentenced to 39 Years in Prison
Wolf and Strange were indicted in February 2022, and Wolf pleaded guilty in June to several charges of manufacturing child pornography, according to the release. A federal judge sentenced Wolf on Feb. 17 to nearly 39 years in prison and over $200,000 in fines, the release said. Strange is slated to be sentenced on March 31.
