Former Polk Assistant Principal Faces Kiddie Porn Charges

LAKELAND, FL — A retired assistant principal who worked for Polk County Schools was among 17 people arrested in a month-long operation targeting people who "possessed and shared" child pornography.

Seventy-six-year-old William Hage of Lakeland was charged with 252 counts of enhanced possession of child pornography and one count of promotion of child pornography, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.

In announcing the charges at a Friday morning news conference, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Hage was found with hundreds of videos and images of child pornography involving girls.

"He is our oldest person. He spent over 30 years working for the Polk County School District," Judd said. "He was a teacher, an administrator, an assistant principal at a middle school."

A school district spokesperson told Patch Hage began his career with the district in August 1969 as a special education teacher and retired in July 2005

Judd said Hage has not had any recent contact with students.

"He's married and he has adult children," Judd said. "His child porn was normally children as young as 8 years of age."

Judd said Hage was online when sheriff's deputies arrived at his home.

"When we served the search warrant he was engaged in an active chat about how to have sex with children," Judd explained. The sheriff's office said one of the images they found was of a baby between the ages of 8 to 12 months.

"The detectives said that there was nothing that led them to believe any students had been victimized," Brian Bruchey of the sheriff's office told Patch.

Others arrested included Brett Kinney, a Disney manager in the entertainment department, who was charged with 24 counts of possession of child pornography enhanced and one count of promotion of child pornography.

"He said he's been viewing child porn for 22 years," Judd said. "He fantasizes that he is the child being victimized in the child porn that he watches."

Another longtime Disney employee, 52-year-old Donald Durr of Davenport, was charged with eight counts of possession of child pornography and one count of promote sexual performance by child. Judd said Durr told detectives he worked as a custodial employee for Walt Disney World Resorts.

Judd said Durr insisted: "I'm a pervert but I'm not a monster."

The sheriff's office said one man arrested was taken into custody as he attempted to meet a Frostproof child while two others were using Snapchat and Facebook to try to obtain nude pictures of two 13-year-old girls. Another man told investigators he would be more likely to sexually batter children if not for child pornography.

"The people arrested during this operation prey on the most innocent and vulnerable among us," Judd said. "Each one of these arrests has removed a predator from our streets, and the internet." The youngest person arrested was 19, according to the sheriff's office.

The sheriff's office also announced 14 other arrests of registered sex offenders and predators as part of a separate investigation Judd referred to as "Operation Trick of Treat" in October.

"This is the most we've arrested that we can remember at one time," Judd said. The two operations combined netted a total of 31 arrests.

The second group of defendants were charged with failure to comply with sex offender registration laws and/or probation violations.

"We know our citizens are concerned about predators and offenders being around children during events such as Halloween, so every year we conduct initiatives like this one," Judd said.