Charges: New Ulm schoolteacher sent, received child pornography

A teacher and youth sports coach in New Ulm, Minn., has been indicted on charges he shared videos of child sex abuse.

Daniel John Janke, 54, of Mankato faces four charges related to distribution and possession of child pornography following an investigation involving the FBI, the Department of Justice said in a prepared statement last week.

Sean Koster, superintendent of New Ulm Public Schools, said Monday that Janke is an employee there but has not been actively working since April 23. He taught high school art.

The school system opened an investigation on Janke after the FBI informed school officials of pending charges, Koster said.

“No New Ulm families or students have ever been involved in the situation or are involved in the charges at all,” he said.

According to the charges: Janke used Kik, a messaging and chat application, to send and receive images and videos of children being sexually abused.

From Oct. 13 to Jan. 29, he was in chat groups with others who sought images of children, the federal indictment said. Online, he posed as “Jack Frost” with the user name “superMel101.”

The victims in the video have been identified and do not reside in Minnesota, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said, according to the indictment. The Virginia-based nonprofit organization reviewed the contents of Janke’s phone.

Federal prosecutors also accuse Janke of receiving explicit videos of underage girls on three occasions in October and January.

Janke had been a longtime varsity golf coach, with a dozen years of experience as of 2017, an article at the time in New Ulm High School’s student newspaper said.

In 2006, he was accused of sending sexual emails to girls at New Ulm Middle School, but was cleared when local police determined two seventh-grade boys had posed as Janke to send the inappropriate messages, the Mankato Free Press reported at the time.