A former Portland teacher has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for possessing sexually explicit videos of children.
Travis McCutcheon, 54, pleaded guilty in May and was sentenced by Judge Nancy Torreson in Portland’s federal courthouse on Tuesday to 42 months behind bars with eight years of supervised release. He has to report to federal prison by Nov. 6 at 2 p.m., Torreson said.
McCutcheon, wearing a bright coral button-up and paisley pink tie, said in court that he is “deeply ashamed” of the crime and that his “all-consuming” battle with alcoholism and childhood trauma contributed to why he sought out and stored videos of child sexual abuse.
“The responsibility for my actions lies squarely on my shoulders,” McCutcheon said. “I expect no less than to suffer.”
He was a teacher at Portland’s Lyman Moore Middle School from November 2021 to February 2023, working in the Breathe program, which supports students with emotional and behavioral needs. Before that, he had worked in Maine schools for 30 years, including Lyseth Elementary School in North Deering as well as schools in Auburn, Glenburn, Lisbon, Raymond and Westbrook.
Police searched McCutcheon’s home in February 2023, on the morning of his last day at Lyman. He was arrested and charged with possessing and soliciting sexually exploitative images of children three months later, in May 2023.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a report from Google that McCutcheon was storing video files in his Google Drive of young boys engaging in sexual conduct. The center then sent a tip to Maine State Police. While McCutcheon initially claimed he was hacked and denied seeing or searching for the videos, he later admitted that he knowingly stored the videos at a plea hearing in May 2024.
And while he was on paid administrative leave in March 2023, McCutcheon appeared drunk when visiting the home of a student with special needs and gave him $2,000, prosecutors said at a May 2023 detention hearing. Torreson said while McCutcheon isn’t accused of abusing any children, that situation was “a little disturbing.”
McCutcheon is one of two Portland schools employees who worked with students in special education programs and was sentenced to offenses related to child sexual abuse material. Former ed tech Benjamin Conroy was sentenced to 22 years last year for sexually abusing a 6-year-old student and recording it.
According to court documents, McCutcheon’s attorneys had requested that the judge consider a sentence under 36 months, saying the offense was driven by his substance use disorder and trauma from being sexually abused as a child. But prosecutors requested the sentence stay between the original guidelines of 57 to 71 months, based on the seriousness of the offense.
McCutcheon told the court on Tuesday that while he knows the sentence will be appropriate, it still hurts to know that he can no longer be a part of the school community. He said he’s anxious about what prison will be like, because he has no criminal record.
McCutcheon’s attorneys also noted that he accessed the videos during a short window of time – at the end of 2022 during the height of his alcoholism, when he would start drinking early in the morning until he passed out. McCutcheon was in “utter horror” after seeing the evidence, he said.
“I struggled to believe it could be me,” McCutcheon said.
Photos and videos are permanent records of a child’s abuse, Torreson said, and every time those materials are shared, the child is re-victimized. While McCutcheon may not have been a “sophisticated” offender, he still stored and accessed at least three videos, and the crime still has victims, Torreson said.
But she said McCutcheon can have a purpose in prison, when living with people who may have committed similar offenses.
“People that are in your shoes normalize this,” she said. “Teach other offenders that this is not normal behavior … Whether you can do it, I don’t know, but that would be an idea.”
McCutcheon’s attorneys also asked for a lesser sentence so he could continue to care for his elderly father. Torreson offered three weeks for McCutcheon to make plans for his father’s care before going to prison, during which he will continue to be on house arrest.
“I do see you as strong … and well on your way to recovery,” Torreson told McCutcheon.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
