Jacob De La Paz found guilty of one child porn charge, mistrial on other

Rodricka Taylor
·4 min read

LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) – Former teacher Jacob De La Paz was found guilty today on one of the child pornography charges he faced, but not the other.

De La Paz was convicted of attempted receipt of child pornography in connection with an incident on or about Jan. 12, 2023. He was also charged with attempted production of child pornography, but a mistrial was declared on that count. It is unclear whether he will be retried.

Jurors heard testimony and evidence about the relationship between De La Paz, a teacher at St. Thomas More Catholic High School in Lafayette, and the victim, whom he was supposed to be tutoring in math. Several witnesses took the stand, including the victim’s boyfriend, those involved with the investigation and De La Paz himself.

Jurors heard testimony and saw evidence on Tuesday when the trial began. During De La Paz’s shocking testimony, he admited to sending a sexually explicit video of himself to a teenage student at his old teaching school North Vermilion High which he was supposed to be tutoring in math. He claimed the conversations between the two started with tutoring, but the student allegedly moved it to personal matters and then eventually sexual.

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He said he sent his video only because the student asked for it before she would send her sexual video. While the government tried to argue the teacher knew the student’s age through her sending him a Facebook request and birthday being visible to her friends and friends of friends De La Paz explained during several conversations they had over Facebook Messenger that the student told him she was 18 years old. He said in one conversation she suggested he should meet her at the mall and just pop up. He added she said no one would get in trouble because she was at a different school than him and she was 18. De La Paz admited she was a former student of his. The prosecutors claimed all messages were deleted from De La Paz’s phone and there was no evidence to support his claims.

Another shocking testimony was from the boyfriend of the victim. He claimed the explicit video was circulating the campus. He said his girlfriend was always talking about De La Paz and obsessed with him. In an attempt to expose the teacher, the boyfriend said he made a fake Facebook account threatening the teacher and extortion. He said his girlfriend was unaware of his doing.

De La Paz was previously employed at a school in Arkansas, where he was found to have “engaged in inappropriate communication with a student via text messaging” in 2017, and at North Vermilion High School.

The conviction of count two, attempted receipt of child pornography is a mandatory minimum of five years. However, a mistrial for the other after the jury could not come to a unanimous decision on the other charge of count one, attempted production of child pornography. which carries a minimum of 15 years in prison. Kevin Stockstill, defense attorney, said it was a victory for his team.

“We’re certainly happy that there was a hung jury on count one,” Stockstill said. “We were disappointed with count two. We felt like we had at least established reasonable doubt as to one of the elements in that case and that we should have gotten a not-guilty verdict but the jury spoke. A conviction of count two is far less serious than a conviction of count one and so having a hung jury on count one is I feel a bit of a victory for the defense.”

Stockstill said the fight for his client’s innocence will continue. The judge said the sentenced was for August 22, but Stockstill said there might be a conflict and said once the new date is announced they would decide if they will appeal or not on the verdict on count two. De La Paz will remain in custody of the Marshal until sentencing.

The testimony of the student was closed to the public. However, when De La Paz was on the stand she had her head down, and eventually she and her boyfriend walked out of the courtroom. De La Paz was told by Walker he violated the rules and policies of both schools he worked at by communicating with a student on unsupervised platforms. Stockstill said his client should be ashamed of what he did as a teacher he should have stopped it, but the student misled her age.

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