The U.S. Secret Service on Monday arrested a Mission High School substitute teacher who they accuse of threatening to disseminate nude images and videos he solicited from a 13-year-old girl who lives in Illinois.
A criminal complaint identifies the suspect as Edgar Hernandez and charges the man with sexual coercion.
The investigation into Hernandez began on Sept. 2 when Secret Service agents in Springfield, Illinois referred the case to special agents assigned to the Homeland Security Investigations-led Rio Grande Valley Child Exploitation Investigations Task Force.
The referral stated that on April 4, the father of a 13-year-old girl reported to Springfield police that his daughter sent nude images to a man in Texas, who threatened to disseminate the images if she did not send him more nude images, according to the complaint.
Special agents tracked the internet protocol address involved to Hernandez.
The complaint said that on Monday special agents contacted Hernandez at Mission High School and that Hernandez agreed to go with the agents to the Secret Service’s McAllen office for an interview where he admitted to soliciting the girl for sexually explicit images and videos on the social media application Snapchat.
He told agents he believed the girl was 13-years-old and confessed to making written threats when she refused to send additional nude images and videos, according to the complaint.
Furthermore, special agents said in the complaint that Hernandez admitted to soliciting 30 children for nude images and videos over a two-year period.
“Hernandez admitted that when the minor children would refuse to send nude images or video, he would threaten to expose them if they did not comply. Hernandez admitted that some minors stated they would harm themselves to include suicide if Hernandez exposed them,” the complaint stated. “Hernandez admitted, in one case, that he told the victim he ‘didn’t care if she did’ and to ‘go ahead because she was ugly.’”
Hernandez made a first appearance Tuesday morning in McAllen federal court in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nadia S. Medrano, who ordered him temporarily held without bond pending a detention hearing scheduled for later this week.
