Former Tower Hill School administrator sentenced for child porn crimes

A former administrator at Wilmington's Tower Hill School was sentenced for dealing and soliciting child porn on Friday.

William Ushler will spend nine years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of dealing child pornography and four counts of sexual solicitation of a child.

What did he do? In court Friday, prosecutors read excerpts from a series of text message conversations Ushler had with girls aged 13 through 16 years old. The chats were sexually explicit and also made clear that Ushler knew that he was communicating with children.

In some cases, he "pestered" the children into sending him sexually explicit images, prosecutors said. He then sent those images to his own personal email address for later viewing and safekeeping, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors centered in on four separate victims where the child's age was clear in their messages with Ushler, but said that was a "conservative" estimate, noting there were many more conversations that appeared to be with minors. Prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence at the hearing.

PREVIOUSLY: Former Tower Hill administrator charged with child porn tried to solicit another youth: DOJ

Ushler speaks: At the hearing, Ushler said he had engaged in therapy and apologized to his family, his victims and the school community that trusted him. His attorney asked for the minimum sentence of two years.

Why nine years? Superior Court Judge Paul R. Wallace credited Ushler for engaging in therapy, but also said his behavior was a "pattern of predation" and a case where Ushler was actually generating child porn through his solicitations with young girls.

What does this have to do with Tower HIll? Ushler worked for the private K-12 school since 2006 and was the director of upper school admissions at the school when he was arrested and fired last year.

Detectives have said they have no information to show that Ushler had any improper "communications with children from Delaware, or children associated with the Tower Hill School."

At the hearing, the prosecutor said there was "no indication" Ushler was committing crimes against Tower Hill students "outside from him admitting to masturbating under a desk while looking at some of the people that work there."

The prosecutor's statement appeared to be a reference to a text message read to the court earlier in the hearing. In the message, Ushler tells a woman whose age is unknown to prosecutors: "at the college I work at, a couple of girls work for my office. Sometimes under my desk I’ll stroke looking at them. Nobody can see but it's fun."

In an email after the hearing, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice emphasized the text message did not specifically mention Tower Hill and there is "no evidence to support it actually happened."

How he was caught? The basis of the dealing child pornography charge was Ushler emailing explicit images to his own Yahoo email account for later viewing. Yahoo reported the emails to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline, which then contacted the Delaware Child Predator Task Force ultimately leading to his arrest.

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or [email protected]. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.