PLAINVILLE — A now-former Plainville High School special education teacher was busted by an online predator site.
Police said that on April 2 they began a criminal investigation into the actions of 49-year-old James Batt Jr. after being alerted by the Plainville superintendent of schools of an online video depicting Batt. At the time Batt was employed as a special education teacher at Plainville High School but has since resigned.
Police said Batt had been communicating online and through text messages with somebody he believed was a 15-year-old boy and that some of these conversations were sexual in nature. The person Batt was communicating with was not a 15-year-old boy, but was the creator of the Pop Squad website, who was posing as a boy.
Police said that on May 28, Batt arrived at a local Dunkin Donuts believing he was meeting a 15-year-old boy. Instead, he was met by the Pop Squad creator who recorded the meeting and that video was subsequently posted on Pop Squad’s website.
During the course of our investigation, police said that in 2010 Batt had a consensual sexual relationship with a juvenile male who was 14 and 15-years-old during their relationship. Although the statute of limitations expired to charge Batt for sexual assault as it relates to the relationship he had with this juvenile in 2010, videos and photographs belonging to Batt enabled them to charge him with other offenses related to his unlawful sexual relationship.
On Monday, Batt was arrested at his place of employment in Bolton without incident and charged with employing a minor in obscene performance, first-degree possession of child pornography and criminal attempt to commit impairing the morals of a minor.
Batt was given $500,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in Bristol Superior Court.
