Johnson County teacher charged with giving porn to child

WARRENSBURG — A Chilhowee music teacher has been charged with electronically sending lewd photographs to a 15-year-old girl in Clinton.

Brian Foree, 23, of Warrensburg, was charged in Johnson County Circuit Court with one count

of furnishing pornographic material to minors, a class A misdemeanor.

The charge came Monday after officers from the Warrensburg Police Department, as well as the Henry and Johnson county sheriff’s departments, searched Foree’s home and vehicle.

The investigation began when a Clinton girl made allegations to the Henry County Sheriff’s Department that led police to Foree’s home. Foree admitted to officers he had been sending the girl pictures that could be considered pornographic, according to a probable cause statement filed by Detective Tim Lowry.

Foree is accused of sending the girl photographs of his genitals.

Foree, a graduate of University of Central Missouri, is in his first year of teaching, said Chilhowee schools Superintendent Stephen Pope.

Foree had been a student teacher in Clinton. He has been placed on administrative leave from his duties of teaching music to children in grades kindergarten through 12, pending an emergency school board meeting later this week, Pope said.

The superintendent said he was unsure whether Foree, whose annual salary was $23,000, would be paid during his leave. Chilhowee has an enrollment of about 145 children in a town about 18 miles southwest of Warrensburg,

A class A misdemeanor is punishable by a maximum of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Foree’s case was the most recent of three in Johnson County in which teachers have been alleged to have inappropriate contact with children.

The Warrensburg school board met in an emergency closed session last Thursday to accept the resignation of high school algebra teacher Christina Stranghuener, 33, after she was accused of sending an inappropriate e-mail to a 17-year-old male student. Stranghuener was in her third year as a Warrensburg school teacher and made $32,650 annually. The police department declined to investigate because the boy was 17 years old.

In the Holden school district, a middle school teacher is charged in Circuit Court with felony enticement of a child and felony promotion of child pornography in the second degree. David B. Shanks, 30, of Warrensburg, who teaches sixth-grade language arts, was suspended from his job and was being held in Johnson County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bond.