{"id":146805,"date":"2026-02-07T01:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146805\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T01:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:34:13","slug":"pinellas-teacher-pleads-to-child-sexual-abuse-charges-u-s-doj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146805\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinellas Teacher Pleads To Child Sexual Abuse Charges: U.S. DOJ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PINELLAS COUNTY, FL \u2014 A Pinellas County teacher pleaded guilty to attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor, attempted coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, and receipt and possession of child sex abuse material, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>Lee Hughes, 46, of Pinellas Park faces up to life in prison. His sentencing date hasn\u2019t been set. <\/p>\n<p>He was <a href=\"https:\/\/patch.com\/florida\/stpete\/new-child-exploitation-charges-filed-against-3rd-grade-teacher-pinellas-county-u-s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">previously a third-grade teacher<\/a>at Pinellas Preparatory Academy in Largo.<\/p>\n<p>Hughes communicated with an undercover officer online for months believing the officer had a 9-year-old daughter. He expressed his desire to sexually abuse the girl, the U.S. DOJ said. <\/p>\n<p>During their conversations, Hughes also sent explicit photos and videos of himself to the officer, which he requested be shown to the purported child.<\/p>\n<p>He arrived at a predetermined location on May 1 with a purple teddy bear planning to engage in sexual activity with the girl, the DOJ said. <\/p>\n<p>He was apprehended by the FBI at the scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, FL \u2014 A Pinellas County teacher pleaded guilty to attempted transfer of obscene material to a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-146805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}