Parent gets back at school official with porn site - Tucson Citizen

A disgruntled Higley parent who wanted to get back at his son’s assistant principal has been convicted of two felonies after starting a fake profile on a pornographic website under the assistant principal’s name.

Robert Dale Esparza Jr., 34, was upset that his then 13-year-old son had his iPod confiscated at Gateway Pointe Elementary School last year, and blamed Assistant Principal Frank Hendricsen.

Hendricsen, who is now the school’s interim principal in the Higley Unified School District, denied taking the iPod, which was never found, said Dennis Ogorchock, a detective with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Computer Crimes Unit, who investigated the case.

According to Ogorchock, Esparza retaliated for the lost iPod by starting a fake profile on a pornographic website under Hendricsen’s name in May 2011. The profile used photos from the school website, including pictures of Hendricsen’s wife.

Esparza posted lewd body photos supposedly of Hendricsen and attached more than 20 pornographic videos to the profile, including sex videos of principals spanking school girls.

Esparza also chatted on the site under Hendricsen’s name, and started an e-mail address under Hendricsen’s name. Esparza’s goal was to be active on the site so when someone searched online for Hendricsen’s name, the porn site would come up, Ogorchock said.

“I’m sure this guy (Esparza) felt that it was funny, thought it was a joke,” Ogorchock said. “He definitely could have damaged this guy’s (Hendricsen’s) reputation and his job prospects.”

Hendricsen, 30, who will continue as Gateway Pointe’s principal for the 2012-13 school year, did not want to comment on the case, referring any questions to Superintendent Denise Birdwell. He has worked in Higley for three years.

Birdwell called the case was “very unfortunate and disheartening.”

“I think the police did a good job at their investigation,” Birdwell told The Republic Thursday. “There are other ways to handle things when parents are disgruntled. We’re here to speak to parents when they feel their children have not been dealt with appropriately.

“This is unusual, inappropriate and sad that this happened,” she added.

The profile was discovered in June 2011 after Hendricsen was interviewing for a principal position in another Arizona school district. Birdwell said one of the district parents searched for Hendricsen’s name online and found the site after he was offered a job.

The district then contacted Higley and withdrew their job offer, said Birdwell, who did not want to disclose the other district’s name.

“To our benefit, we were looking for a principal internally and (eventually) promoted him as principal,” Birdwell said. “We were happy to retain him because he’s very, very good.”

Birdwell said the porn site was “very cooperative” with getting the profile removed. Higley officials did their own investigation when the profile was discovered, she added.

Esparza was found through his IP address, which was linked to his work laptop, Ogorchock said. Esparza worked for Safeguard, a locally-owned home security company. The company did not return a call to comment on the story.

A search warrant of Esparza’s Gilbert home found evidence on his work and home laptops.

Ogorchock said Esparza initially blamed his son, who is now 14, but then gave a full confession during a two-hour long recorded interview saying he was responsible for the profile.

The son is no longer at the school, Birdwell confirmed.

“At 13, it didn’t seem possible for the son to be writing the things that were written on there,” said Ogorchock, adding the profile was sexually graphic. “Esparza then admitted he had done it all and said he was doing it just to slander him (Hendricsen).”

Despite his confession, Esparza wanted the case to be tried in Maricopa County Superior Court. Ogorchock said.

A jury convicted Esparza of two felonies, taking the identity of another and computer fraud, under Superior Court Judge Daniel Martin.

Sentencing is set for June 5, and Esparza is “looking at some jail time,” Ogorchock said. Esparza does not have a prior criminal record, he added.

Esparza could not be reached for comment.

Identity theft is a common problem. Ogorchock recommends checking online on a regular basis through information search sites, like Google, and looking at credit reports to search for signs of identity theft.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2012 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Arizona Republic News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.