Superior Court Judge Dwayne McConnell sentenced a former Tuluksak teacher to 10 years in prison, with six of those years suspended.
John Paul Donald Douglas, 37, had pleaded guilty to one consolidated count of possession of child pornography.
Douglas was hired by the Yupiit School District in 2016. He moved to Tuluksak and taught seventh and eight grade.
In 2017, Superintendent Rayna Hartz requested that the school board renew his contract.
Only a few months later, a state law enforcement investigation uncovered a pornographic video that depicted children and had an IP address geo-located to Tuluksak, Alaska.
When the Alaska Bureau of Investigation finally got its hands on Douglas’ electronic devices, they found approximately 2,000 pictures and videos of child sexual exploitation there.
Douglas downloaded at least some of that pornography with a laptop that he had borrowed from the Yupiit School District.
Douglas initially denied the charges against him, but when a state trooper confronted him with some of the evidence against him, he confessed to using peer-to-peer file sharing software to download images of child sexual abuse.
Douglas will serve four years in prison. Once out of prison, Douglas will be on supervised probation for five years, and he will be required to register as a sex offender for 15 years after his release.
