Teacher pleads in child-porn case

Former North Stafford High teacher pleads guilty to 40 additional child-porn charges

By ROB DAVIS

Date published: 5/28/2005

A former North Stafford High School teacher and coach pleaded guilty yesterday to 40 counts of possessing child pornography.

The images were found at the school on a laptop computer that belonged to Craig D. Welker. The 33-year-old Fredericksburg man was working as an earth science teacher, football defensive coordinator and track coach when he was arrested in October.

An investigation began last May, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip about Welker's activities. Someone using the screen name "powerade100" had uploaded several images to a Yahoo! group, according to court records.

Authorities in Bedford County--a state clearinghouse for child-porn cases--traced the screen name and an e-mail address to Welker, who was living on Cornell Street in the city.

Virginia State Police obtained search warrants for his apartment and the school, and seized a large number of compact discs, 8-mm films, pictures and magazines, court records state.

Welker's laptop was seized at the high school, which led to charges being filed in Stafford.

Prosecutor Eric Olsen said all of the images depicted children younger than 10 years; some images showed children as young as 4 being sexually abused.

Welker will be sentenced Aug. 22--10 days after a trial in the city, where he still faces 125 charges of possession of child porn. He pleaded guilty to five distribution charges there in late March. He faces up to five years in prison on each charge in the Stafford case.

To reach ROB DAVIS: 540/374-5418 rdavis@freelancestar.com

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Date published: 5/28/2005