A former Spokane resident who was a teacher at a religious school was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for multiple felony charges for child sex crimes.

SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane Police Department (SPD) says a former teacher at a religious school was arrested in Florida on multiple felony charges of possessing material depicting sexual abuse of children.

SPD says 38-year-old Tyrone L. Cliff was arrested and booked into the Hillsborough County Jail. He is currently waiting for extradition back to Washington state, according to officials.

According to SPD’s press release, the investigation with Cliff started in August when the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) received a CyberTip about the downloading and viewing of sexual abuse of children material from Cliff. 

SPD says that once they identified Cliff as a Spokane resident, detectives were preparing to serve search warrants on him, but later found out he had moved to Ruskin, Florida.

The ICAC states that its detectives contacted Florida officials regarding Cliff, and they subsequently issued multiple felony warrants for him. Their investigation also found that he was actively working as a middle school teacher in Hillsborough County.

Our sister station, WSTP in Tampa, Florida, says that Cliff worked at Bayshore Christian School. They reached out to the Headmaster at Bayshore Christian over the phone and she says Cliff only worked at the school for nine weeks, teaching math and science. 

The headmaster also told WSTP that he had no disciplinary issues and underwent a background check. She also says Cliff was arrested on campus on Tuesday and was fired immediately.

Editor’s Note: SPD has not released immediate details about which Spokane religious school Cliff was previously employed at.  KREM 2 is working to uncover this information.Â