Cryptocurrency, child sex abuse material and a confession: Teacher faces 11 charges

INDIANAPOLIS - An Indianapolis teacher and composer is now charged with buying and downloading child sex abuse material online.




Investigators learned about his activities through a series of suspicious cryptocurrency purchases made from a site on the "dark web."




Julian Wachner, 55, faces 10 counts of possession of child sex abuse material, a Level 5 felony, and a count of possession of cocaine, a Level 4 felony.

Investigation starts with tip

According to the probable cause affidavit, the investigation started on Aug. 11 with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that was forwarded to the IMPD Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) unit.




The financial platform Robinhood reported a suspicious cryptocurrency purchase involving Wachner's account on Aug. 8. The report said Wachner transferred cryptocurrency from his Robinhood account to a website known to sell and distribute child sex abuse material on the "dark web."




The term "dark web" refers to parts of the internet that are shielded from standard search engines like Google. They're accessed through secure browsers, such as Tor, and utilize encryption to give the user anonymity.




Some of these websites deal in shady activities such as the sale of personal information, data breaches, drugs and child sex abuse material.








Making a purchase on the "dark web" through cryptocurrency provides another layer of "pseudonymity" for investigators to dig through.




According to court documents, the website Wachner visited allowed users to buy allotments of tokens that they could then spend on various explicit videos and images.




After unraveling various blockchain transactions, detectives identified three suspicious cryptocurrency transfers Wachner made from his Robinhood account to the website where the explicit material was available.




The transactions, conducted between Aug. 22, 2024, and Feb. 14, totaled $840.60.

Wachner talks to detectives

Detectives conducted surveillance at Wachner's home on North Pennsylvania Street in Indianapolis. On Aug. 20, they submitted a request for a search warrant of his home and vehicle to look for portable devices "on his person or in his immediate (reach), including personal bags, backpacks, briefcases and exterior clothing," according to the affidavit.




IMPD officers stopped Wachner's vehicle that same day and took him in for questioning.




During the subsequent interview, Wachner admitted to visiting the illicit website and making "hundreds of purchases" through the tokens he'd bought on the site, according to court documents. He purchased cryptocurrency through Robinhood and transferred it to the website in exchange for tokens.








He was fully aware of the material the website offered-sexually explicit material involving minors-and said he had downloaded and deleted child sex abuse material that he had obtained from "dark web" sites. The activities, he said, spanned "the course of several years," according to the affidavit.




Wachner told investigators they'd find an Apple MacBook Pro containing the explicit material in a bedroom closet along with a "substantial quantity of cocaine." He also kept an external hard drive he used to back up or "mirror" the files in some plastic drawers.




Wachner told detectives the material involved children between the ages of 1 and 16 years old, with his "specific preference" being for "material involving children between the ages of 6 and 13," according to the affidavit.




During a search of Wachner's house, police found the Apple MacBook Pro and what appeared to be cocaine in the bedroom closet. They also seized a hard drive they'd located inside a set of plastic drawers--exactly where Wachner said they would find it.




While the digital material is still under analysis, detectives found a sexually explicit compilation video more than two hours and 20 minutes in length on the laptop. There were "dozens" of files of child sex abuse material listed in the laptop's "Recents" section, court documents said.




Wachner was most recently employed as a fourth-grade math teacher for Invent Learning Hub, an Indianapolis charter school. He has since been removed from the staff directory and the school said he has been placed on administrative leave.




Before moving to Indianapolis, Wachner, an accomplished composer and conductor, had been the music director for a New York church. However, he was fired after an employee accused him of sexual misconduct. He also lost his job at the Juilliard School of Music.




Wachner sued for defamation, and the case was later dismissed.




An initial hearing in the Indianapolis case was scheduled for Tuesday.





via: https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/cryptocurrency-child-sex-abuse-material-and-a-confession-teacher-faces-11-charges/