Meadow Hall Teacher Arrested on Sex Offense Charges

A special education teacher at in Rockville was arrested Tuesday in connection with sexually-oriented conversations he allegedly had with undercover police officers posing online as 14-year-old girls, county police announced Wednesday.

Jeremy Earle Brown II, 28, of the 12900 block of Pinnacle Drive in Germantown, is charged with three counts of sexual solicitation of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography. 

Brown teaches kindergarten through fifth-grade students with autism at Meadow Hall Elementary, police said in a news release. Brown was hired on Nov. 2, 2006, said Dana Tofig, a spokesman with Montgomery County Public Schools.

"The school system was informed of the investigation on Aug. 31 and [Brown] was immediately placed on leave and has not been in the classroom since," Tofig said. "He has certain due process rights, but we are moving forward with dismissal proceedings."

According to police, between July 5 and Dec. 1, 2010, Brown solicited several undercover detectives who were posing in online chat rooms as 14-year-old girls. The detectives were from the Kenner Police Department in Kenner, La. and the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office in Macomb, Mich.

Brown allegedly initiated sexual-oriented conversations with the detectives on several occasions. He also invited detectives to view his webcam video in which he was observed naked and masturbating, police said.

The detectives forwarded information about the conversations to the Montgomery County Police Department’s Family Crimes Division, who developed Brown as a suspect.

A search of Brown’s home yielded several computers and thumb drives containing nude images of young girls, police said.

Brown was arrested Tuesday without incident. He was released from jail the same day after posting $50,000 bond.

This is the second time this year that a teacher who worked at Meadow Hall has been arrested for alleged crimes involving children.

Susan Lee Burke was at Greencastle Elementary School in Silver Spring, where she worked as a first-grade teacher. Burke taught kindergarten at Meadow Hall from 2001 to 2009. She is in Rockville.

"Meadow Hall has great staff and the alleged actions shouldn't take away from that," Tofig said on Wednesday.