Employee caught with child porn at PWHS guilty

A 31-year-old man accused last year of watching child pornography while working as a computer technician at Port Washington High School pleaded no contest last week in Ozaukee County Circuit court to a felony.

William T. Miley’s plea was accepted by Judge Steve Cain, who found him guilty of possession of child pornography during a May 22 hearing.

Two other identical charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement but read into the record, which means Cain can consider them when sentencing Miley on July 22.

Miley, a Plymouth resident who told authorities after his arrest in March 2023 that he is addicted to pornography, particularly that which depicts teenage girls, and traded it on the internet, faces a recommendation from prosecutors that he be sentenced to six years in prison and three years of extended supervision.

The investigation that led to Miley’s arrest dates to May 10, 2022, when the social media site Kik notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that four days earlier a user had uploaded pornographic files, according to a criminal complaint.

The files showed a girl between the ages of 10 and 13 exposing herself, a child between the ages of 6 and 9 having sex with an adult and a child between the same ages exposing herself. The last file was captioned “Pre-teen pics” and on one side of the file was a “chat” button and on the other side a play button labeled “live.”

One of the IP addresses used to upload the files was traced to Miley and gave authorities the information they needed to secure and serve search warrants for his home, which was in Cedar Grove at the time, and offices at Port High. Numerous electronic devices were seized.

Miley was arrested on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, which is when Port Washington-Saukville School District administrators first became aware that he was the subject of a criminal investigation, Interim Supt. Mel Nettesheim said. Miley was immediately placed on administrative leave and no longer works for the district.

During a bail hearing two days later, Ozaukee County Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Lindsay said Miley accessed Kik almost exclusively from his cell phone and most often while he was at Port Washington High School, saying that he may have forgotten to turn off the WiFi on his phone and connected to the school’s network.

On the day of his arrest, Miley agreed to answer questions and told a detective that he has gone through “spurts of pornographic addiction” and that he likes pornography that shows girls between the ages of 14 and 17, according to the complaint.

He said that he set up internet accounts to access pornography, but then deleted them after he “calmed down” and described his use of Kik as “sort of a high, so to speak.”

Miley told the detective, “I’ve done some stupid things and mistakes I then regret, so I’ve tried my hardest to stay away from that stuff. It’s almost like being addicted to drugs in that way,” according to the complaint.

Miley said he traded child pornography and uploaded videos of girls he believed to be younger teenagers so he would be accepted into the chat groups he was trying to access.

He said he believed the last time he accessed Kik was March 2022 and that he only used his cell phone. Miley said he then transitioned to finding pornography on Reddit and Telegram, although Telegram had “the most underage stuff” and he “tried to stay off there,” the complaint states.

Of the girls shown in the videos reported by Kik to authorities, Miley said the one believed to be 10 to 13-years-old was “the bare minimum for the age” that interested him. He said the 6 to 9-year-old girl was not the type of child he was interested in but that he probably traded it with someone to “get what he wanted,” according to the complaint.

During last week’s hearing, Cain ordered Miley remanded into custody until his sentencing. He had been free in lieu of $20,000 bail.