Former Associate Principal And High School Teacher Sentenced To 15 Years For Child Enticement And Possession Of Child Pornography

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JONATHAN SKOLNICK was sentenced today to 15 years in prison for enticing minor children to send him nude and sexually explicit photographs and videos of themselves over the Internet.  On April 5, 2022, SKOLNICK pled guilty before U.S. Judge Colleen McMahon, who imposed his sentence.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “For approximately seven years, Jonathan Skolnick abused his position of trust as an associate principal and teacher in New York City schools by posing as a teenage girl online and successfully enticing minor victims, including his own students, to send him child pornography.  This lengthy prison sentence holds Skolnick accountable for his horrific crimes and the extraordinary harm and trauma he caused to many minor victims and their families.” 

According to the Indictment, court documents, and based on statements made in open court:

Between in or around August 2012 and in or around June 2018, JONATHAN SKOLNICK worked as a high school teacher at a school in Brooklyn, New York.  In or around July 2018, SKOLNICK became an associate principal at a middle school in the Bronx, New York, where he worked until his arrest in September 2019.  While in those roles, SKOLNICK posed as a teenage girl online, contacted minor victims by email, social media message, and text message, engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the minor victims, and enticed the minor victims to send him nude and sexually explicit photographs and videos.  Many of the minor victims were students at the schools where SKOLNICK worked. 

During the time period of his crimes, SKOLNICK used at least 21 different email and social media accounts to contact nearly 100 different individuals and solicit nude and sexually explicit images and videos.  When certain minor victims stopped communicating with SKOLNICK, he threatened to release the photographs and images that the minor victims had sent.

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In addition to his prison term, SKOLNICK, 40, of the Bronx, New York, was sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department.  

The prosecution is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit.  Assistant United States Attorneys Elizabeth A. Espinosa and Rebecca T. Dell are in charge of the prosecution.