Vice Principal Accused of Sending Child Pornography

PALMDALE — After months of online exchanges with a San Bernardino detective posing as a 13-year-old girl, a Palmdale vice principal has been arrested, allegedly for knowingly distributing child pornography, the U.S. attorney’s office said Monday.

Clifford George Doty, a vice principal at Quail Valley Elementary School, was arraigned Monday. A Lancaster resident, he was arrested about 6 p.m. Friday in San Bernardino.

Principal Brenda Smith could not be reached for comment Monday, but Palmdale School District officials said the school district was reeling at the revelations.

Grove said the district was notified of the arrest by the FBI and received a second call Monday afternoon from the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Doty has been vice principal at Quail Valley since October 1999 and had taught in the Palmdale School District since 1983. He has been placed on paid administrative leave pending law enforcement and internal investigation into the matter, Grove said.

A 31-page affidavit filed by the FBI details a lengthy, sexually explicit e-mail correspondence between Doty and San Bernardino Sheriff’s Det. Mike DiMatteo, who posed online as blond, hazel-eyed, sexually precocious “Rebecca Wst.”

Doty sent numerous pornographic photos to the undercover agent, according to the affidavit. An FBI researcher identified two images sent to “Rebecca Wst” on Sept. 10 as originating in child pornography magazines published in Denmark.