Polk teacher charged with showing porn to students
MULBERRY (FOX 13) - Authorities said a Polk County high school teacher viewed pornography on his cell phone during class.
Vadi Velez-Gonzalez, 47, is a reading teacher at Mulberry High School.
Deputies said on October 28, multiple students reported seeing adult male pornography on his cell phone. Velez-Gonzalez was allegedly viewing the porn images while students came to his desk to ask questions.
"She looks down and there's this pornography in plain view for the world to see," Sheriff Grady Judd said.
One student even recorded video of what she saw on the teacher’s iPhone, investigators said.
"It's like, are you kidding me? You showed this pornography to ninth-grade children," Judd said. "This teacher, Gonzalez, actually exposed the children to pornographic sex acts, and now we've exposed him to the county jail."
During a search of Velez-Gonzalez’s phone, deputies found that he had visited the website adam4adam.com more than 350 times since September 30. Two of those times were during school hours, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
Velez-Gonzalez was arrested and charged with four counts of showing obscene material to a minor, and four counts of using a two-way communication device to commit a felony. The school district has placed him on administrative leave.