Ex-teacher pleads not guilty sexual abuse, child porn

Judge denies defendant cellphone

STAMFORD — Over the strenuous objections of a defense attorney, a Stamford judge on Tuesday prohibited a 69-year-old former educator — charged with possessing 1,500 images of child pornography and molesting an 8year-old Greenwich girl last year — from possessing a cellphone that could take photos or videos.

John Mueser of Tuckahoe, N.Y., was arraigned Tuesday in state Superior Court on felony charges of fourthdegree sexual assault, risk of injury to a minor and firstdegree possession of child pornography. Greenwich police arrested Mueser in April.

Judge Bruce Hudock said Mueser, a former teacher at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, N.Y., could not be trusted with a device that could take pictures and videos while he remains free after posting $250,000 bond.

In his first appearance in court since his arrest, Mueser pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.

After arguments from Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel Cummings, Hudock also ruled that Mueser cannot loiter where children and teens congregate, may have no unsupervised contact with minors and is prohibited from seeking employment as a teacher, mentor or tutor while he awaits trial.

Cummings said he wanted to add those prohibitions to Mueser’s conditions of release in order to protect the public.

After police seized Mueser’s cellphone, they found a “breathtaking 1,500 images of child pornography on that phone, some of which was produced by the defendant while using the camera on the phone. I really don’t think there is an argument that public safety is not in danger by the defendant having a phone with a camera. He has already used it once in this case,” Cummings said.

Mark Sherman, Mueser’s defense attorney, argued that taking the phone away may be justified after a conviction, but not at a time when a suspect is presumed innocent.

“We believe this is frontend punishment by the state,” Sherman said. He added that his client has agreed not to spend time around children, which should provide the state with the assurance that no abuse could occur.

But Hudock said he was not prohibiting Mueser from using a home computer equipped with Zoom to contact anyone, and the judge sided with Cummings and prohibited Mueser from using any cellphone with a camera that can take pictures or video while he is free on bond.

According to his nine-page arrest warrant from Greenwich police, Mueser came under investigation when the parents of an 8-year-old girl he was tutoring heard that Mueser had inappropriate pictures of her on his cellphone.

After the father saw some of pictures, police were called and Mueser’s phone was seized. After the phone was searched, police found over 1,500 “contraband and evidentiary images and videos,” the affidavit said.

Anumber of inappropriate pictures and videos of the girl were found on the phone, the affidavit said.

After the hearing Sherman said, “These are conditions that are typically meant for convicted sex offenders. What sometimes gets lost in cases with serious sexual allegations is that there is a presumption of innocence and conditions like these set risk for a precedent that may not be necessarily fair for those people wrongfully accused.”

Mueser’s case was transferred to the Part A docket, where the most serious cases are decided. He is scheduled to return to court on Jan. 11.

Mueser