Elementary School Principal Pleads Guilty to Producing Child Pornography

The former principal of Sageville Elementary School in Dubuque, Iowa, who produced child pornography by secretly videotaping students at the school, pled guilty today in federal court in Cedar Rapids.

Robert Burke, age 43, from Dubuque, Iowa, was convicted of one count of producing child pornography. In a plea agreement, Burke admitted that, between January 2011 and June 3, 2011, while he was principal at Sageville Elementary School, he used cameras, including hidden cameras in the school bathroom, to take videos depicting the lascivious display of the genitals of unknowing male students at the school. Burke admitted he saved these videos on hard drives at his house in Dubuque.

Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Burke remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Burke faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, a $100 special assessment, and supervised release for five years to life following his imprisonment.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Iowa Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Dubuque Police Department’s Digital Evidence Forensic Laboratory, and the Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 11-1004.