A part-time basketball coach at a high school on Florida's Treasure Coast was arrested Friday after deputies said he paid female students to send him nude photos.
NBC affiliate WPTV-TV reports 28-year-old Alton Edwards, who worked as a campus monitor and coach at Martin County High School, was arrested after sheriff's deputies received an anonymous tip that Edwards was soliciting pictures on social media.
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"It looks like his major (modus operandi) would be to find the girls on Snapchat, take a look at their friends and then just start probing," Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said. "Really, it's grooming. He finds a child who might be more vulnerable and he gets them to send pictures of them unclothed and sends them cash."
Snyder said most of the girls were either 15 or 16 years old and seven girls admitted to sending photos after being paid between $10 and $75.
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"Our theory is that he probably [took a] screenshot, saved some of those pictures, and that when we serve the search warrant, we will find them on his camera," Snyder said, adding the department will work with social media outlet Snapchat to help recover the photos.
The Martin County School District said Edwards had been employed since 2016 and has been moved to a position working at home so that he has no contact with children during the investigation.
"The Martin County Sheriff’s Office and Martin County School District appreciate the continued support of our community as we work collaboratively to keep our students, employees and schools safe," the district said in a statement. "Families continue to be encouraged to speak with students about the importance of practicing the “see something, say something” rule and reporting any suspicious activity they notice to a trusted adult."
