Chemistry teacher charged in ‘catfishing’ sex scheme involving 9 high school students

A former high school chemistry teacher from San Jose has been charged in a “catfishing” scam with posing online as a teenage girl to lure young boys into sending him sexually explicit videos and photographs, prosecutors said.

Douglas Le, 25, faces multiple charges, including nine counts of sending harmful matter to a minor, possessing matter depicting a minor engaging in or simulating sexual conduct, and annoying or molesting a child, according to the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office. The former Gilroy High School teacher is set to be arraigned Monday.

“This is a deeply-troubling example of why young people should be extremely wary of strangers that they decide to communicate with online,’’ said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jaron Shipp in a prepared statement. “Not everybody has bad intentions. Some absolutely do.”

Le is accused of posing as Rae Pelletier, a teenage girl persona he created to lure at least nine boys from high schools in Santa Clara County, prosecutors said.

Using photographs of an adult pornography star, Le traded texts and explicit images with boys from Gilroy High School and other area campuses for a year and a half on a Facebook instant messenger application, according to the district attorney’s office.

His “catfishing” scam went on from June 2014 through at least January 2016, prosecutors said.

The act of “catfishing” has been well-documented on the MTV show “Catfish.” The show follows people who have been engaging in online relationships with people they have never met or talked to on the phone. The show’s host Nev Schulman, whose own “catfishing” incident was the subject of a documentary that led to the show, helps participants track down their love interests’ true identities. In some cases, the person is who they said they were. Most cases, however, usually end up in heartbreak as the participants come to find out the person wasn’t who they said they were.

Le came under suspicion in April, when Facebook became interested in the “Rae Pelletier” account.

Facebook notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the account was possibly involved in inappropriate communication with a minor.

The Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received the alert and began investigating the account, which eventually led to Le.

Investigators searched Le’s home on April 26 and seized several hard drives and computers. He was arrested the same day at the high school.

The Gilroy Unified School District said Le is no longer employed with them.

Le taught for three years at Gilroy High School. After Le was arrested, a team of psychologists and counselors were made available for students and staff, the district said.

Student told KGO-TV that Le taught honors chemistry and was well-liked.

“I personally don’t think he did it because he’s too much of a smart guy to actually do a crime like that,” student Leylanie Arriaga told the news station.

If Le is convicted of the charges, he faces up to eight years in prison, prosecutors said.

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UPDATES:

2:08 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Gilroy Unified School District.

This article was originally published at 1:20 p.m.