Malcom Douglas Crawford, a retired Snyder ISD teacher and former substitute teacher, is free on a personal recognizance bond after pleading guilty to lying to an FBI agent about having an iPad in his possession that possibly contained child pornography.
Crawford is alleged to have had the iPad in his possession while serving as a substitute teacher at Snyder High School.
According to federal court documents, Crawford will appear before U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings on June 5 for sentencing.
The maximum penalties Judge Cummings can impose include imprisonment for no more than eight years and a fine not to exceed $25,000. If he is sentenced to prison, he will have a supervised release period of up to three years.
Crawford, represented by attorney Zollie Steakley of Sweetwater, pleaded guilty on May 12 to the one-count indictment of making a false statement to a government official, FBI Special Agent Keith Quigley.
On March 21, Snyder Police Sergeant Mike Counts interviewed Crawford concerning an iPad that Crawford owned that reportedly had been in his possession while substitute teaching at Snyder High School. Crawford told Counts that he had an iPad but had not taken it to school and he would get it and let the officer examine it.
According to court documents, Crawford threw away the iPad that he had at the high school on March 6. He then gave an older iPad to Counts to examine.
Both Counts and Quigly determined that the iPad was not the one Crawford had in his possession at the high school.
The FBI agent met with Crawford on March 22 to try and determine the location of the iPad Crawford possessed while substitute teaching. Crawford told the agent that he never had an iPad in his possession at the high school.
When the FBI agent showed Crawford a photo of him holding an iPad that he claimed he never had, he told the agent he’d gotten rid of it “several years ago.”
According to the indictment, Crawford knew this statement to the FBI was false and that Crawford had gotten rid of the device in question the day after being interviewed by Counts.
The indictment stated that Crawford made the false statements to the FBI agent despite being warned that he could be prosecuted for lying during the investigation. The location of the iPad was material, according to court records, because it related to the investigation related to the possible possession of child pornography.
Crawford was a fifth grade teacher in the school district before retiring in 2012.
Attempts to contact Snyder Police Chief Terry Luecke and Snyder ISD Superintendent Eddie Bland for comment today were unsuccessful.