Former Eanes Independent School District teacher Zachary Barnett is facing additional charges after previously being arrested for possession of child pornography.
Barnett is accused of inducing the sexual performance of a child under the age of 14 after the Department of Public Safety executed a search warrant at his home and discovered devices containing thousands of photos of his female students.
According to the affidavit, accessed by local media, “The majority of Barnett’s self-produced videos were zoomed into the female students’ skirts, their underwear, and/or their crotch area.”
Barnett reportedly played a game with his students where they would freeze and pose. He would then take photos of them “in a sexually explicit manner.”
He is not the only teacher accused of turning student images into child sexual abuse material.
Austin ISD elementary teacher Carl David Innmon is also facing charges for using AI to manipulate images of his students and create child pornography.
The Texas Senate passed legislation to crack down on child predators using artificial intelligence to create “deep fake” images of child sex abuse.
The measures include Senate Bill 20, a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, which sets criminal penalties specifically for AI-generated child pornography. It’s currently awaiting action in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.
Barnett resigned from Eanes ISD in February and will not return to campus.
Hundreds of Texas teachers have been accused of sex crimes involving children in just the past few years.
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