Former Elementary School Teacher Pleads Guilty After Filming Sexual Abuse Of 15-Year-Old Victim

A former elementary school teacher in Oregon pleaded guilty this week to sexual trafficking of a minor after he repeatedly met with and paid an underage teenage girl for sex after meeting her online.

William Hamann, 38, of Eugene pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of sex trafficking, federal prosecutors said in a press release. They said that between 2018 and July 2019, he paid the teenage girl for oral sex and that he had recorded her performing the acts — videos of which were discovered on his phone. 

Hamann was arrested by Eugene Police Department detectives and FBI agents on July 26, 2019, when he had arranged to meet the girl for the fourth time.

“Agents searched his mobile phone and found a recording of one of the sex acts. Hamman used social media to arrange the meetings with the minor,” prosecutors said in their statement, adding that the unidentified teenage girl was 15 at the time of their first encounter.

William Hamann Photo: Lane County Sheriff's Office

In August 2019, a grand jury slapped Hamann with a four-count indictment of sexual exploitation and trafficking of a child, possession of child pornography, and attempted sex trafficking of a child. He was also charged with sodomy and sex abuse, among other counts, in the Lane County Circuit Court, prosecutors said. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is going to recommend Hamann serve a sentence of 160 months in federal prison consecutively with a 20-month sentence in Lane County, according to his plea agreement. He has also agreed to pay an unspecified amount of restitution to the victim, the agreement states. He is set to be sentenced on March 1.

Hamann taught at Eugene’s Spring Creek Elementary and in October 2018 also operated a haunted house in the city, according to The Oregonian. The paper reported that police said they had no indication that any children at the school where Hamann taught were abused by him.