Portland school employee charged with federal sex crimes
Oct. 26—A Portland school employee who was arrested earlier this month for alleged sex crimes is now facing charges in federal court.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Maine has charged Benjamin Conroy with sexual exploitation of a minor and transportation of child pornography. Both crimes are felonies, and the first carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Conroy, 32, was working as an education technician at Ocean Avenue Elementary School. The allegations against him involve a child there, and an affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court of Maine shows the federal charges are based on the same reports.
That document also says that the Department of Health and Human Services recently received an allegation of abuse regarding two children who were students of Benjamin Conroy while he was previously working at another elementary school in Maine. The affidavit does not provide any additional details about that allegation, and Conroy is not charged with any related crimes.
Portland Public Schools hired Conroy this summer. He worked in a classroom for students on the autism spectrum. Before that, he worked for CASA, which advocates for abused and neglected children, and before that for Regional School Unit 22 in Hampden and RSU 2 in Hallowell.
Conroy is being held at the York County Jail on $50,000 cash bail.
On Oct. 5, Portland police received a report of possible criminal sexual activity involving a child, based on photos posted by a dating app account that police linked to Conroy. Police made the connection after Conroy was arrested on Oct. 8 on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman and exposed himself in public on the Western Promenade. The clothes he was wearing at the time resembled those in the dating app photos, and the background of the photos matched the school.
The school principal later confirmed the photos were taken at Ocean Avenue in the classroom where Conroy worked. The parents of a student there confirmed to police that their child was in the photos.
Court documents say that Conroy denied a connection to the school photos when police interviewed him.
This report will be updated.
