School bus driver, a former teacher, arrested in child porn sting

A former teacher who is now a substitute bus driver for the Issaquah School District was arrested by Homeland Security agents on Thursday on charges of possession and distribution of child pornography.

Undercover agents said they caught Andrew Rekdahl, 30, downloading and sharing child pornography under the screenname “Hboyandy.” When he was confronted with the accusations Thursday, Rekdahl confessed and told agents “his preference in child pornography is males in their mid to late teens,” according to court documents.

“All of that is such a surprise to me ’cause everything we’ve ever known about Andrew is (he’s) a fine young man,” said Bill Rowe, a neighbor of Rekdahl’s who watched him grow up.

Rekdahl has been a substitute bus driver for the Issaquah School District since last November. In a statement, district officials said there was no evidence he did anything inappropriate while working there. The district said it ran state and federal background checks on Rekdahl before he started driving for the district in November.  The checks showed that Rekdahl had a clean record.

Rekdahl is perhaps best known for his years as a former student and science teacher at Eastside Catholic High School in Sammamish. He was laid off from the school two years ago because of budget cuts and was later diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. The nun who runs the school confirmed it sponsored fundraisers for his treatment, making the accusations against him especially troubling.

“I am really, really saddened. I am heartsick,” Sister Mary Tracy said.

She said when she heard of Rekdahl’s cancer, she put him back on the school’s insurance, which she doesn’t regret. 

The investigation began about a year ago, when a Homeland Security special agent used an undercover account on a Internet peer-to-peer file sharing program to find people creating files containing child pornography, according to court documents. The agent said that in January, he was able to access a user’s shared files that contained videos of children engaged in sex. The agent said the same user continued to download or share similar files during the investigation over several months.

Agents were able to track the user’s IP address through his Internet service provider, which provided them with Rekdahl’s Carnation address, according to the documents. On Thursday, a search warrant was obtained and Homeland Security agents and Duvall-Carnation police entered Rekdahl’s home through an unlocked door.

Documents said officials found multiple digital devices,  including a laptop that contained 194 image files of suspected child pornography. Agents interviewed Rekdahl at his place of employment in Issaquah, where he admitted to downloading files and shared or traded child pornography over the Internet. He was arrested afterward on charges of distribution of and possession of child pornography. Source: KIRO News