Former East Valley High School teacher sentenced to spend year in prison for possession of child pornography
Feb. 3—A former East Valley High School teacher was sentenced last month to just over a year in prison after he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.
Ryan Seidel, 42, was arrested last year after an investigation found hundreds of images of children being sexually abused on his messaging accounts.
A Homeland Security investigation found Seidel was exchanging child sexual abuse material on Kik, a messaging app.
On one of Seidel's accounts, there were more than 250 images, many of them explicit, depicting children as young as toddlers and up to teenage girls, according to court records.
Investigators traced the IP address to Seidel's Mead home.
Seidel resigned from his teaching position in March but had been on leave since July 2020, when the school district learned of the investigation, according to the school district.
Seidel pleaded guilty to felony possession of depictions of a minor engaged in explicit conduct in November, according to court documents. Additional charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement.
The charge is a sex offense with a standard sentencing range of 12 to 14 months, according to court documents.
Seidel was sentenced to spend 12 months and one day in prison.
The sentence, handed down by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Tony Hazel on Jan. 10, guarantees Seidel will serve his sentence in a state prison rather than the local jail, which houses inmates with sentences of less than a year.
