46-year-old Lakeland High School teacher arrested for child porn

As per the recently released reports, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office says it received a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the KIK Messenger app was used to upload a video depicting child pornography on February 20, 2020.

Reports say deputies arrested the 46-year-old Shawn Fitzgerald a teacher and varsity soccer coach at Lakeland High School, on 408 counts of child pornography.

The records show the video uploaded on the KIK Messenger app showed a young female (approximately 10-12 years old) performing oral sex on an apparent adult male. Deputies found 408 images of child pornography of both boys and girls on Fitzgerald’s phone.

“We saw horrific acts.” “Everything from children as young as 10-months-old and that were engaged in some form of illicit, horrible, sexual conduct as a baby all the way up to the early teens,” said  Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

Deputies said so far there is no evidence that Fitzgerald was a sexual predator in the sense that he carried out illegal acts with children. But the investigation is ongoing. “We will bring this man to justice,” Judd vowed. “Our goal is that he sits in prison for a very long time. Our prayer is that there are no child victims. Our other prayer is that we can identify these children who have already been victimized.”

Reports say Fitzgerald is being held on a more than $2 million bond