DULUTH — A northern Minnesota high school’s dean of students, who was arrested in March on a felony warrant from Georgia, was extradited to Atlanta on Monday on 12 charges related to having obscene internet contact with a child.
Christopher John Chad, 51, of Eveleth, Minn., was arrested by the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office after it received tips that he had received “child sexual abuse material.”
Chad was described as a dean at Rock Ridge High School in Virginia in a letter to parents from superintendent Noel Schmidt in March. At the time, he had been placed on administrative leave and not allowed on school property.
Chad, who was being held in the Fulton County jail, appeared in court Tuesday.
The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office said it does not believe there were any local victims.
According to the affidavit for Chad’s arrest, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip in January that an adult was having “sexualized conversations with possible minors,” claimed to have touched minors in the past and worked at a school. Chad was allegedly talking to potential minors in Colorado and Georgia, and a predator in Washington.
In the Georgia case, the affidavit says Chad believed he was messaging with a 12-year-old boy — a sexually explicit conversation that started in November. They traded photos and at least one video. At one point, Chad told the boy that he didn’t want to reveal he was dean of students because the boy might not like him.
Chad told the boy that if he transferred to his school in Minnesota, there is a blind spot the cameras couldn’t see, according to the affidavit.
