Former Twin Cities substitute teacher pleads guilty in 'sextortion' scheme

Nick Woltman, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
·2 min read

Oct. 20—A former Twin Cities substitute teacher has pleaded guilty to targeting minors in an online "sextortion" scheme.

Mitchell James Ottinger, 25, of Carver, posed online as a teenage girl to solicit nude photos from boys as young as 10, threatening to disseminate the explicit images if the boys refused to send more, according to a plea agreement filed Monday in U.S. District Court.

Ottinger pleaded guilty to two counts of producing or attempting to produce child pornography, and one count of extortion, court documents say.

A sentencing hearing for Ottinger has not yet been scheduled. He faces up to 62 years in prison.

Before he was charged in May, Ottinger worked as a substitute teacher and paraprofessional at Eastern Carver County Schools, and he met some of his victims through work, according to a news release issued by the U.S. attorney's office.

The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday evening.

In his plea agreement with prosecutors, Ottinger admitted to victimizing at least 10 children in the sextortion scheme, which dates back to at least 2012 — when he was a teenager — and continued for nearly a decade.

The crimes outlined in the criminal complaint against him all occurred when Ottinger was an adult.

In 2020, for example, Ottinger allegedly posed as a teenage girl named Rachel Meyer to contact his victims via social media or dating apps and express a romantic interest in them.

Ottinger then convinced the boys to send him sexually explicit photos of themselves in exchange for photos of Ottinger's fictional female persona, according to the criminal complaint.

When the boys either refused to send more photos or began blocking Ottinger's account, he threatened to distribute their nude photos.

Investigators with the FBI were alerted to the case in July 2020, when one of the teens contacted them to report being "catfished," a term that describes luring someone into a romantic relationship using a fake online persona.