A former Anchorage school teacher was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for collecting more than 40,000 images and videos of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Daniel Alan Brown, 34, began working for the Anchorage School District in 2006 as a substitute teacher and was hired permanently several months later. Brown worked at Goldenview and Mears middle schools and Klatt Elementary School before becoming a teaching assistant in the special education program at Huffman Elementary School.
According to a release from the U.S. Attorney's office, many of the images were of young boys being sexually abused. Investigators also found non-pornographic images of Anchorage-area children, which he got through various sources including public Facebook posts. Sometimes the images were used as avatars for child porn sharing accounts.
"At other times, the defendant posted these non-pornographic photographs on the file sharing site and sought comments about the images from other traders of child pornography," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
At Brown's sentencing, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason shared victim impact statements from the children involved in the pornography, as well as from some of the parents of children whose non-pornographic images were taken.
Gleason said Brown was "very self-absorbed and focused on his own satisfaction."
After Brown's 15 years in prison, he'll spend the rest of his life on supervised release.