Brandon Keith Mitchell
DOWNINGTOWN — A former Downingtown West High School chemistry teacher has been charged with texting obscene images and texts to a student, asking for nude images of the underage student and various other criminal charges.
Brandon Keith Mitchell, 30, of West Chester, was charged with Unlawful Contact with Minor, Child Pornography, Endangering Welfare of Children, and Corruption of Minors by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office and the Downingtown Borough Police Department announced the arrest, Tuesday. The defendant is alleged to have engaged in numerous sexually explicit solicitations and conversations with one of his chemistry students through text messaging.
“This defendant used his position of trust and authority to engage in serious misconduct with a student,” said Chester County District Attorney’s Office Chief of Staff Charles Gaza. “As always in cases like this, where a teacher had access to hundreds of students over multiple years, the authorities are concerned that there may be other victims out there.”
Mitchell was a teacher at the school from Nov. 30, 2010 through April 16, 2015.
According to authorities, Mitchell was texting a 16-year-old student in his chemistry class, and asked for nude images of the student and send images if himself to the student. Allegedly, the student did send Mitchell about 10 images and one sexually explicit video.
Police executed a search warrant on Mitchell’s phone and reportedly found more than 12,000 text messages between the him and the victim. These exchanges took place between May 2013 and December 2014.
Although, according to authorities, Mitchell told the student to delete the texts, police say they were able to recover text messages that the Mitchell allegedly sent to the victim in June of 2013 suggesting that the victim perform oral sex on him after the victim graduated from high school. Police said they also recovered hundreds of other sexually explicit text messages, several nude images of the victim, and a sexually explicit video of the victim on the defendant’s laptop computer.
The defendant was arrested on Feb. 3 and charged with multiple counts of Child Pornography, Unlawful Contact with Minor, Endangering Welfare of Children, and Corruption of Minors. The defendant’s bail was set at $50,000 unsecured . A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on March 9 at District Court 15-4-02 in Downingtown.
This case was investigated by the Downingtown Borough Police Department with assistance from the Chester County Detectives. Anyone with further information should contact Downingtown Detective Andy Trautmann at 610-269- 0263.
