A “drag kid” mentor and a former elementary school teaching assistant is facing child pornography charges following an investigation into exploitative material shared on the internet.
Kelsey Boren, 31, was arrested on August 11 in Lane County, Oregon after law enforcement
discovered evidence that she had “utilized the internet on numerous occasions to distribute and exchange pornographic images of children” and “engaged in creating child pornography and uploaded it to the internet.”
Detectives had initially received a tip about a photo that had been shared of a child laying naked on a bed. Law enforcement traced the image to Boren, who admitted to officers that she had communicated with “pedophiles on the internet” for several years, and had sent and received images of child sexual abuse.
Boren claimed that she had not been acting out of her own sexual desire, but because she found pedophiles “interesting.”
She allegedly told detectives that she had become addicted to child abuse materials, and her need for child porn was like an “uncontrollable itch that she couldn’t stop.”
In response to her first hearing on August 13, a
crime alert was issued by local news, notifying the community of her arrest and warning that Boren had had direct access to children both at her place of employment and at her home.
At the time of her arrest, Boren was working as a teaching assistant for special needs children at Veneta Elementary school.
In total, Boren is facing 13 charges, including 12 counts of encouraging child sex abuse and one charge of using a child in display of sexually explicit conduct. Boren’s trial is scheduled for December 13.