{"id":168662,"date":"2026-03-19T22:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T22:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168662\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T22:23:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T22:23:33","slug":"hells-kitchen-independence-high-school-teacher-arrested-on-federal-child-porn-charges-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168662\/","title":{"rendered":"Hell’s Kitchen Independence High School teacher arrested on federal child porn charges in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

HELLS KITCHEN, Manhattan (WABC) — A teacher in Hell’s Kitchen is under arrest on federal child porn charges.<\/p>\n

According to a federal complaint, 32-year-old Joseph Taylor McKeel was arrested Wednesday morning on his way to Independence High School.<\/p>\n

Authorities say he was found in possession of a thumb drive with 150 images of child sexual abuse as well as a meth pipe.<\/p>\n

Police overseas in Scotland say they first spotted McKeel trading the images on a social media app called Telegram and alerted the FBI.<\/p>\n

McKeel appeared in federal court in Downtown Brooklyn, where he was ordered held without bail.<\/p>\n

A judge is expected to decide whether he will be placed in a drug treatment program. His attorney told the court he struggles with addiction.<\/p>\n

McKeel, who teaches at-risk students, has been suspended from his position.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

* Get Eyewitness News Delivered<\/a> <\/p>\n

* More Manhattan news<\/a><\/p>\n

* Send us a news tip<\/a><\/p>\n

* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts<\/a> <\/p>\n

* Follow us on YouTube<\/a> <\/p>\n


Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News<\/p>\n

Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HELLS KITCHEN, Manhattan (WABC) — A teacher in Hell’s Kitchen is under arrest on federal child porn charges.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[69185,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-168662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-69185","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}