South Carolina High School Teacher Indicted for Enticement of a Minor and Transportation of Child Pornography

(Alexandria, VA) -- A federal grand jury returned a two-count indictment today charging Timothy Lynn Brumit, age 47, of Aiken, South Carolina, with enticement of a minor and transportation of child pornography. Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Calvin L. Johnson, Chief of Police, Dumfries, Virginia, Police Department; and, Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington Field Office, made the announcement after Brumit’s initial appearance today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

According to the indictment and court documents, between January 2 and January 23, 2008, Brumit used “Hello.com,” a website operated by Google, Inc., to communicate with a person whom he believed to be a 13-year-old boy located in Stafford, Virginia. Brumit, who used the screen name “charmingtim75” online, actually was communicating with an undercover detective from the Dumfries Police Department. The Google Hello online service enables users to trade and view digital pictures and videos while chatting in real time about the images. During the course of more than 15 online chats, Brumit distributed over 500 files containing graphic images and movies of child pornography to the undercover detective. The images included depictions of boys under the age of twelve engaged in sexual acts with other minor boys or with adult males. Some of the images that Brumit distributed to the undercover detective depict violence and sadistic and masochistic abuse of young boys.

As they viewed the images of child pornography, Brumit instructed the undercover detective to engage in sexual acts and encouraged him to obtain a webcam. Brumit also discussed traveling from his South Carolina home to Stafford, where he would meet the fictitious boy, take him to a motel room and engage in sexual activity with him. Brumit also wanted the fictitious boy to leave his family and live with Brumit in his South Carolina home. In one of the last Google Hello chats prior to his January 24, 2008 arrest in South Carolina, Brumit instructed the fictitious boy to bring his original birth certificate and social security card when Brumit met him in Virginia. Brumit also instructed the fictitious boy to bring the laptop that he had been using to communicate with Brumit, which Brumit planned to destroy to conceal his connection to the fictitious child.

At the time of his January 24, 2008 arrest, Brumit was employed as a high school English teacher at Batesburg-Leesville High School, in South Carolina. Brumit has held a number of teaching positions in South Carolina public school districts over the past ten years.

If convicted, Brumit faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, to a maximum sentence of life, in prison on the child enticement charge. Brumit faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years, to a maximum sentence of 20 years, in prison on the transportation of child pornography charge. He also will be subject to at least five years, to life, of court supervision, and will be required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction in which he lives, works or goes to school. Brumit has been detained since his January 24 arrest.

This investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Dumfries Police Department. This case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Edward J. McAndrew, who is on detail from the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice.

Criminal indictments are only charges and are not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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