By Logan Smith | CBS Colorado
A former Durango middle school teacher who obtained sexual images from more than three dozen teenage boys by pretending to be a 16-year-old girl on social media was sentenced last week to four decades in prison.
Benjamin Smith was sentenced in a Denver federal courtroom Tuesday. The judge ordered lifetime supervision, too, once Smith is released from prison.
Smith, 30, posed as “Kristin” on Snapchat under the username “MTNCHICK69,” according to evidence presented by federal prosecutors. Behind that identity,
Smith reached out to boys in the Durango area as young as 12. He started conversations, sent out photos of a naked girl, then asked the boys to send back photos of themselves in return, prosecutors stated.
Smith used his disguise and tactics to “convince the targeted adolescents that they were engaging in sexual acts with ‘Kristin,'” as stated in a federal press release announcing the sentence.
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