Valley Christian High School is being sued by a student for failing to protect him from exploitation at the hands of Todd Baldwin the former operations manager at the school. Baldwin was arraigned in a federal court for paying underage students to create illicit images. If convicted of the two charges of child pornography he will face a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Baldwin, 44, now lives in Washington state. He appeared in a courtroom to answer to two counts each of enticing a minor and receiving child pornography. These charges were based on the testimony of 2 victims. As he has pled not guilty, he was allowed to remain out of jail custody under the supervision of a relative, until the next court hearing on Feb 4. His attorney has not issued a statement.
The law firm Cerri, Boskovich, and Allard are representing one of the victims in a lawsuit against the school. The 17-year-old victim alleges he was forced into sending dozens of sexually explicit photos and videos to Baldwin between December 2022 and August 2023. Detectives report that there is evidence that Baldwin transferred more than $4,200 to the victim. The Second victim who listened in the criminal proceedings was 16 when Baldwin solicited him. He was a student at a different South Bay high school. He was paid close to $2,500 in exchange for sexually explicit material.
The plaintiff says in the lawsuit that the school administrators should have noticed Baldwin’s suspicious activity. Baldwin routinely took the victim out of class under the pretense of working as Baldwin’s teaching assistant even though as operations manager, his job did not involve any student-facing duties. He is also accused of providing alcohol and marijuana to students.
“This was a huge red flag,” said plaintiff attorney Lauren Cerri. “This kid had a major attendance problem and would frequently be observed by staff in Baldwin’s office instead of in class. No one said or did a thing about it.” The lawyer says that the school failed to respond to excessive noise (coming) from his office while the plaintiff and other male students were inside including during instructional hours when they should have been in class.”
The President of Valley Christian Schools, Clifford Daugherty insists the school alerted authorities. “While we have not seen the lawsuit and cannot speak to any specific allegations, when we were first made aware of this matter in August 2023, we acted swiftly, terminating the individual, and fully cooperated with law enforcement and we have continued to cooperate with authorities as this process unfolds.”
Cerri said the crimes could have been stopped sooner if Valley Christian staff had identified what she described as clear grooming behavior and other friable acts. “Valley Christian betrayed this student and his parents’ trust,” the attorney said. “The lack of proper oversight created an environment where such abuse could occur on campus undetected.”
Baldwin was involved with a complicated scheme. In an interview with detectives he “admitted to receiving nude images and [explicit] videos from multiple minor boys in exchange for money.” He reportedly approached the victims with the promise of selling the material on Reddit and splitting the revenue. Baldwin purchased one of the boy’s lighting equipment “to improve the quality of the images and videos produced.”