Teacher charged with having child porn on computer

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A Springfield middle school teacher and Boy Scout troop leader was charged Friday with possession of child pornography after a computer repair shop alerted police to images on a hard drive.

Greene County prosecutors charged Gary Rademacher, 53, with 10 felony counts of possessing pornographic pictures and films of boys younger than 14. Rademacher is a former Springfield elementary school principal and now an eighth-grade history teacher, they said.

Police said in court records filed with the charges that they were called by Aztec Computer Outfitters after Rademacher dropped off a hard drive for repair in January.

Investigators won a search warrant for Rademacher's home based on images on the hard drive. Police said they found more than 1,300 suspected child pornographic images and 12 movie files, mostly of boys, on computer drives and disks in Rademacher's home.

Rademacher was booked and released Friday on a $10,000 bond, a jail official said.

The conditions of his bond prohibit any Boy Scout activity or other contact with children while he is free, according to court records.

If convicted, the maximum prison term would be four years per count, which a judge could order served concurrently or consecutively, prosecutors said.