Island Trees teacher pleads guilty to child porn charges

A federal prosecutor said he would ask for a reduced sentence for a popular former Island Trees schoolteacher who pleaded guilty Wednesday to trafficking in child pornography due to the man's "substantial cooperation" leading to the arrest of two people in California for child molestation.

Eastern District federal prosector Allen Bode made his remarks in federal court in Central Islip concerning Richard Hartig, 43 of Lindenhurst, arrested by federal agents in July.

Bode said Hartig had helped federal marshals and Suffolk police recently locate a California man who was convicted of child molestation but had fled before he could be sentenced. Marshals found the man hiding out with a second man, also involved in child molestation, Bode said.

Officials already had an active investigation into the whereabouts of the California man, Bode said. But Hartig, who had prior Internet communications with the man, contacted him. The resulting e-mail exchanges enabled officials to obtain the man's IP address and locate him, Bode said.

Hartig, a longtime science teacher at Island Trees Memorial Middle School in Levittown, pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in child pornography.

"I offered to trade a file over a computer and that file contained photographs of children involved in sexual activity," Hartig told U.S District Judge Joseph Bianco in pleading guilty. "I sent it [from] my apartment."

Prosector Bode said that the recipient of Hartig's pornography involving young boys was an undercover FBI agent who had entered a chat room in October 2008, used by people who shared child pornography.

Hartig's attorney, Anthony Colleluori of Woodbury, said his client had resigned, was repentant and is undergoing treatment in jail for his interest in child pornography.

Colleluori said his client had been molested by a neighbor as a young boy but had never molested children himself.

Hartig faces a sentence ranging from 5 to 20 years but may get a lesser sentence because he cooperated. Island Trees officials could not immediately be reached for comment.Prosecutor Bode has previously said Hartig had been warned by Island Trees school officials in the past about unspecified "inappropriate conduct" with students. But when Hartig was arrested in July, the superintendent said then that he was not aware of a internal school memo from 2000 criticizing Hartig for that conduct.