Former Mississippi teacher gets nearly 200 years for sexual abuse of former students

GREENVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A former Mississippi educator was sentenced Thursday to nearly 200 years in prison for multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a child, federal prosecutors said.

Chief U.S. District Judge Debra M. Brown sentenced Toshemie Wilson, 48, of Okolona, who worked in the Amory School District, to 192 years behind bars and ordered him to pay more than $123,000 in restitution to his victims as well as a $5,000 trafficking assessment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi said in a news release.

Jurors in Greenville found Wilson guilty in December of eight counts of sexual exploitation of children based on his conduct while working as a teacher in the school district. Testimony during his trial revealed that Wilson used his position as a teacher and advisor for a student group to groom students to eventually produce child sexual abuse videos and pictures in exchange for money and drugs.

Seven people testified that Wilson approached them while they were students and solicited them to make sexually explicit videos in exchange for pay between 2005 and 2014 at various locations, including a school bathroom.

“Parents and children should be able to trust teachers, and Toshemie Wilson profoundly betrayed that trust and deserves every hour of every day that he spends in prison,” U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner said. “I cannot say enough about the courage of the victims who came forward .... Wilson is now exactly where he belongs.”