HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies said a middle school teacher they arrested for possessing child porn said the images were not sexual and that they should be instead “considered art.”
Deputies arrested 55-year-old Ronald Sherman Thursday morning, charging him with a dozen counts of possession of child pornography.
According to an arrest report, deputies began investigating Sherman in January. Investigators said they received a tip that Sherman was uploading pornographic images of young girls under the age of 10 to the blogging site Tumblr.
Detectives said when Sherman was presented with the images after he was arrested, he said they were “not sexual” and they would be “considered art.”
The arrest affidavit said Sherman was a teacher at Apollo Middle School in Hollywood. However, a spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools said Sherman resigned on June 17.
A 7News crew knocked on the front door of Sherman’s Pompano Beach home, Friday afternoon, but no one answered.
One of Sherman’s neighbors was shocked that a man accused of having hundreds of images of children on his computer was living across the street from her. “Crazy. Had we known, not that we would have moved, but I’m really good friends with one of the police officers around here,” said Anne Marie Mills. “I would have said, ‘You guys want to watch out for this guy, man.’ We had no clue, no clue. He’s never outside. He never watches any of the kids.”
Sherman is currently being held at the Broward County Jail on a $240,000 bond.
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