By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT — A former fourth and fifth grade Manhattan prep school teacher was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for having a massive child pornography stash, prosecutors said Monday.
John Thomas, 28, pleaded guilty in April to to a federal child pornography offense. He was found to have 43 CDs worth of lewd images of children that he downloaded from a peer file sharing network.
He had taught at Friends Seminary in Gramercy, Horace Mann Academy in the Bronx and was about to take a full-time position at the Bank Street School in Morningside Heights when he was arrested in August 2010.
He was working at the 92nd Street Y as a summer camp counselor at the time of his arrest, prosecutors said.
Thomas must turn himself in by July 5 to begin the federal prison sentence.