Former Cherokee teacher, husband sentenced after collecting child porn for years, prosecutors say

GORDON COUNTY, Ga. — A Calhoun couple who distributed child sex abuse materials and concealed evidence of doing so were sentenced to federal prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said William Sandridge, and his wife, Allyn Michelle Sandridge, shared messages containing images of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct, as well as covered up those messages.

USAO said the activity continued for several years, beginning no later than December 2017.

At the time, Allyn Sandridge was a middle school special education teacher at a charter school in Canton.

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The couple’s arrests were first announced in December by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

According to a release, the two had been charged after an investigation by the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit and Homeland Security Investigations were tipped about the Sandridges’ online activity.

After getting a search warrant, the GBI worked with the Calhoun Police Department, the Polk County Police Department, and the U.S. Secret Service to arrest the couple.

The two were taken into custody at the Gordon County Jail upon their arrests, according to the GBI.

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The USAO said the Sandridges started sharing explicit messages with each other related to prepubescent children at the end of 2017.

“Beginning no later than in December 2017, William Sandridge began to send his wife, Allyn Sandridge, text messages detailing his sexual fantasies involving prepubescent children. Some of the messages contained images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct,” USAO said.

At her husband’s direction, Allyn Sandridge “periodically deleted her husband’s text messages and used an encrypted messaging application. These steps were intended to avoid detection of and conceal William Sandridge’s crimes.”

Due to the search warrant, investigators found multiple cell phones and a desktop computer “loaded with graphic images of child sex abuse.” Officials said Mrs. Sandridge cooperated with the investigation and showed officers the materials her husband had sent to her phone.

Wednesday, both were sentenced in federal court. William Sandridge entered a guilty plea on June 6, while Allyn Sandridge entered her own plea on May 25.

Per U.S. District Judge William M. Ray II, the two were sentenced to the following:

• William Sandridge, 42, of Calhoun, Georgia, was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. He pleaded guilty to the distribution of a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit.
• Allyn Michelle Sandridge, 42, of Calhoun, Georgia, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. She pleaded guilty to possession of a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and misprision, or the deliberate concealment, of a felony.

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