An elementary-school substitute teacher and a children’s shoe store worker were among 26 people busted in a horrific child porn ring, prosecutors said today.
The group swapped ‘truly sickening’ photos and videos of children as young as one being sexually assaulted, the way others ‘trade baseball cards,’ Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R Vance Jr said.
‘These images are not pornography or pictures of erotica intended for sexual excitement,’ Vance added.
These are babies, these are toddlers.’
Substitute teacher, Joshua Ruiz, 32, who lives with his mother in the Bronx, had explicit pictures and videos and chatted with others online about child porn, prosecutors told a judge.
He told one he had had sexual contact with a relative under 15 and said he ‘would love to be a part of it if you let me, at least just to watch,’ to another who was discussing the idea of sexually assaulting a young girl, prosecutors added.
Ruiz today pleaded not guilty to promoting and possessing a sexual performance by a child.
I have never touched a child sexually in any way,’ he told investigators, according to court documents.
The documents also state that Ruiz has admitted to having child porn on his computer to investigators.
‘The downloading of child pornography got to be an obsession,’ prosecutors said of Ruiz.
He taught at several schools in Manhattan but was removed from teaching after his arrest last month and is currently free on $15,000 bail.
Others in the ring included a Harvard-educated lawyer, a building super, a banker, a high school student, a bartender and a member of the National Guard.
They are all between 18 to 63, and some have children of their own, according to prosecutors.
Another defendant worked at Alice’s Tea Cup on Amsterdam Avenue, New York City, an Alice in Wonderland-themed cafe that serves parents and their children.
An unemployed architect was also allegedly in the ring and exchanged explicit images via the web with a 16-year-old boy in Canada.
