A Belton Independent School District teacher who was fired following his arrest on child pornography charges was arrested again for sex crimes involving children—this time for recording videos of female students without their knowledge.
Pietro Victor Giustino, 39, was arrested in July on federal charges of possessing child sex abuse material, including depictions of minors engaged in sexual intercourse.
Giustino was arrested again Monday on state charges of invasive visual recording, a state jail felony.
During the course of investigating Giustino, the FBI discovered 13 cellphone videos of females recorded in a classroom setting without the girls’ apparent knowledge, according to a statement from the Belton Police Department.
Police worked with school staff and identified the girls as students at Belton High School, where Giustino taught at the time of his first arrest. Local authorities then issued arrest warrants for Giustino on two counts of invasive visual recording.
Belton Police also stated that parents of students who are believed to be in the recordings have been contacted by the department and/or Belton ISD.
If parents have not been contacted, then their children do not appear to be involved.
“We appreciate the FBI’s strong partnership and the cooperation of Belton ISD,” Belton Police Chief Larry Berg said. “Anytime a juvenile is the victim of a crime, we take it very seriously. We will pursue justice for any victim of a predatory crime.”
State records show Giustino has been certified to teach science since 2011, when he began working for Belton ISD as a high school STEM teacher. His certificate is currently under review by the Texas Education Agency.
In 2022, Giustino was named Belton ISD’s Career and Technical Education Teacher of the Year.
Giustino was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Task Force in Bexar County and booked into the Bexar County Jail on September 22. Bond was set at $100,000.
Belton Police said he would be transferred to the Bell County Jail at a later date.
Hundreds of Texas school employees have been accused of sex crimes involving students and other children over the past few years in districts across the state—including Belton ISD.
Two Belton ISD educators were arrested in March: Tarver Elementary School teacher Estevan Banda, charged with indecency with a child by sexual contact involving a fourth grade student, and South Belton Middle School teacher Logan Michael Demeny, charged with sexually assaulting an underage student multiple times in 2021.
Also this year, former Lake Belton High School athletic trainer Trevor Swift was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for possessing child sexual abuse material featuring victims as young as five years old or younger. Swift was arrested in 2022 after students caught him watching child porn while at school.
In 2020, South Belton Middle School orchestra director Lydia Christensen had her teaching certificate revoked when she entered federal prison after being convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography showing victims under the age of 12 engaged in sex acts.
Belton High School computer science teacher James Alleman III was arrested in 2018 for having child porn on his school computer after he projected it onto a screen during a class.
Thousands of educator sexual misconduct complaints have been reported to the state since the TEA began keeping organized records in 2021.
