CINCINNATI — Mark Altherr, former Oak Hills School District fitness education teacher charged with possessing and distributing child porn, now faces more than a dozen new federal charges tied to his alleged exploitation of children, according to court documents.
Altherr was indicted in federal court on Wednesday on the new charges.
Initially, Altherr faced one federal charge of distribution of child pornography and one federal count of possession of child pornography.
Now, the 45-year-old also faces more serious charges: 16 new counts of sexual exploitation of children.
Court documents say the charges are connected to Altherr's illegal and explicit interactions with a victim who was between 5 and 6 years old at the time the crimes were allegedly committed.
On at least 16 instances spanning between May 30, 2023 and June 20, 2024, Altherr allegedly produced child pornography depicting the victim "engaging in and assisting another person to engage in sexually explicit conduct," according to court documents.
The documents go on to say the child pornography investigators found depicted "a prepubescent minor and a minor who had not attained 12 years of age."
From there, Altherr distributed the explicit content to others online, the documents say. Altherr faces one charge for each video or image he made of the child, which were found on a USB drive, according to the court documents.
Initially, federal court records claimed Altherr had been distributing sexually explicit material depicting children on a website beginning at least in December of 2023 and continuing into July 2024; the new indictment shows investigators determined Altherr was creating and distributing child pornography before then, as early as May 2023.
The website Altherr used, launched around 2019, specifically describes itself as "a child pornography community," the court documents say.
The FBI's investigation showed Altherr was an active member of that website and posted files to it, some of which depicted child pornography, according to court documents. The FBI determined Altherr had been using the site since 2021 and that, in that time, he made at least 262 posts on the site — some of which were made just six months ago, according to court documents.
After they learned Altherr was a teacher at Delshire Elementary in Delhi Township, FBI agents believed it was "necessary" to find Altherr. On July 26, they went to his home in Cincinnati but found he was not there, court documents say. A ping of his cellphone showed investigators that he was at a public location in Columbus, Ohio, according to the FBI.
An FBI agent was dispatched to that location in Columbus, where they found Altherr's vehicle, court documents say.
"At approximately 7:54 p.m. on July 26, 2024, the Agent observed an individual fitting the description of Altherr enter the vehicle with a minor female," reads the criminal complaint filed against Altherr.
Agents watched as Altherr drove himself and the child to a hotel in the Columbus area, the document says. That same day, agents reviewed images posted by Altherr to the website, including images depicting sexual abuse of children. Based on that, FBI agents said they believed the child with Altherr was "in imminent danger when she entered the hotel with Altherr," the criminal complaint says.
As a result, agents executed a probable cause arrest on Altherr. Once he was arrested, the agents went inside his hotel room and discovered a young girl, completely nude, the document says.
Later that same evening, FBI agents executed a search warrant on Altherr's Cincinnati home. During that search, electronics at Altherr's home were found to have both images and videos depicting sexual abuse against children, some as young as 3-to-4 years old.
Altherr is currently being held in the Butler County jail on retainer for federal officials; he's been ordered to stay in detention until his trial.
The FBI is encouraging anyone who believes they or someone they know could have been a victim of Altherr's actions to fill out a short online form.
"Make sure they don't feel embarrassed, give them that open space to come forward and talk to us," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Kenneth Parker said. "We're urging any and every person to come forward so that we can hold him to the highest level of accountability."
Altherr accepted his job at Delshire Elementary School in the Oak Hills Local Schools District in 2019. He was employed as a fitness education teacher at the elementary until his arrest. Prior to his time in Cincinnati, Altherr spent nearly two decades teaching in several schools in Colorado.
His personnel records, requested by WCPO after his arrest, do not indicate any past complaints or disciplinary actions, but documents in the file did say the FBI wasn't able to rule out whether any of Altherr's students were victims of his actions.
"From an FBI perspective, we are early in the investigation and at this point we cannot say for certain no students were harmed and no activities happened at school," the FBI spokesperson said. "We need time to go through all the Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)."
Earlier in August, the OHLSD Board of Education voted to move forward with Altherr's termination process. Before that, on July 30, the district sent a letter to parents and staff notifying them of allegations against Altherr and stating that he'd been placed on unpaid administrative leave.
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