Man Appears in Court For Child Porn Charges

A former Austin and Pflugerville band teacher is in the custody of U.S. Marshals on multiple child porn charges.

Last week, Robert Ramos Jr. was arrested in connection to a New Jersey babysitter who federal agents say "live streamed" video of her sexually assaulting the five year old girl in her care.

Federal agents say Jennifer Mahoney assaulted the girl in the bedroom and bathroom of her home on several different occasions.

FBI Agent Jacob Baillie said in federal court in Austin Wednesday that Robert Ramos Junior, going by the name "Rob" in Arizona, would watch those assaults on his web cam from his Southwest Austin apartment.

"You would hope that they would immediately stop viewing it and call police right away, but he did the total opposite to keep it for himself and in his collection,” said Matthew Devlin, assistant U.S. attorney.

Baillie said the FBI began monitoring Ramos' online usage in July of 2011 while investigating a teacher in New York.

"[Ramos] was communicating with another teacher in New York about other people to solicit to send nude photographs including some that include child pornography,” Devlin said.

Prosecutor Matthew Devlin says investigators learned that Ramos and the New York teacher were setting up Facebook accounts posing as teen girls. The New York teacher, agents say would ask Ramos to "friend" underage students in his class to try and get nude photos or video.

In November, agents confiscated computers from Ramos' Southwest Austin apartment. An FBI agent says he found dozens of video clips and photos of child pornography.

"He did have some nude/semi-nude photographs of someone who he identified as a former student,” Devlin said. “We don't know if that student is over 18 or not."

Ramos worked at AISD from 2005 to 2007 as the band director at Burnet Middle School.
At the time of the search warrant, he was working in Pflugerville as the assistant band director at Dessau Middle School. A Pflugerville ISD spokesperson says the district has no reason to believe any students are involved.

"If anybody does know if they've even tried to friend their child on Facebook without anything more, you don't know what could happen. We'd obviously like to know that kind of information,” said Devlin.

FOX 7 News was not able to get a comment from Ramos' attorney.

A judge will decide whether Ramos will be able to bond out of jail by Thursday morning.