FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Brooklyn Math Teacher Charged with Allegedly Enticing
Teenagers to Send Him Explicit Sexual Images
Posed as a Young Teen and Allegedly Engaged in Graphic Conversations
On Snapchat; Charged in Connection with Six Child Victims Attending Elite Schools
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a 37-year-old former math teacher has been charged with use of a child in sexual performance and promoting a sexual performance by a child as sexually motivated felonies, as well as other related counts, for allegedly enticing or trying to entice teenage students from four Brooklyn schools to send him images of nudity and sexual performances. The defendant, who used to teach at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights, allegedly pretended to be a young teen and fellow student when engaging in conversations of sexual nature over the messaging application Snapchat.
District Attorney Gonzalez said, “A complicated investigation by detectives from my office revealed extremely disturbing conduct by this defendant, who allegedly posed as a peer to coax teenagers to send him sexually explicit images of themselves, which he then allegedly distributed. The fact that he was a teacher and a trusted figure among students make these allegations even more troubling. We will now seek to hold him accountable and will continue to work diligently to protect children from sexual exploitation.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Winston Nguyen, 37, of Harlem, New York. He was arraigned today in Brooklyn Criminal Court on a criminal complaint charging him with use of a child in a sexual performance, promoting a sexual performance by a child, first-degree disseminating indecent material to minors, third-degree conspiracy, third-degree criminal solicitation and endangering the welfare of a child. Bail was set at $30,000 cash or $75,000 bond and the defendant was ordered to return to court on October 17, 2024.
The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, the defendant allegedly presented himself as a young teen when having conversations with children on Snapchat. He is charged with crimes against five girls and one boy who went to the independent Brooklyn schools Saint Ann’s School, Poly Prep Country Day School, Berkeley Carroll School, and Packer Collegiate Institute. It is believed that the defendant had similar online interactions with numerous other children.
The 11 charged incidents allegedly took place between October 2022 and May 2024. The first four involved a child who, starting when they were 14, received multiple video messages from an account called hunterkristoff depicting a nude boy masturbating, and was subsequently asked to send images of them nude or performing sexual acts. Investigators located the boy seen on the videos, who lives in another state and was 16 at the time.
The same account, hunterkristoff, was allegedly used to conduct prolonged communications that described and depicted various sexual acts and requested images of nudity and sexual performances from four additional victims, whose ages ranged between 13 and 15.
The sixth victim, who was 15, received messages from an account called haircutbongos that engaged them in similar conversations and made similar requests. In May 2024, the child sent a video depicting them perform a sexual act and was allegedly paid by the defendant. It is alleged that the defendant shared some of the explicit photos he received from the victims when chatting with other children.
The two Snapchat accounts mentioned above were connected to IP addresses associated with the defendant’s Harlem residence, according to the investigation. Other evidence includes digital communications and images, and accounts from victims.
Anyone with information about this case or this defendant is asked to email ReportSNAPCHATImages@brooklynda.org.
The case was investigated by KCDA Detective Investigators, with the assistance of Senior Digital Forensic Analyst Sourov Talukder and Digital Forensic Analyst Richard Rojas, of the District Attorney’s Digital Evidence Lab.
The case is being prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Daniel Brian Newcombe, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Kevin O’Donnell, Deputy Bureau Chief, and Assistant District Attorney Olatokunbo Olaniyan, First Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Assistant District Attorney Miss Gregory, Bureau Chief.
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A criminal complaint is merely an accusation and not proof of a defendant’s guilt