Child Porn Sting Nets Teacher

A kindergarten teacher arrested at a motel with dog leashes, leather restraints and a stuffed puppy was charged with arranging to have sex with an 11-year-old boy, authorities said Monday.

The boy never existed, however. The teacher, Lawrence Cohen, was caught in a sting operation. He faces charges of attempted sexual assault and distributing child pornography.

The case began in an Internet “chat room” in February, when Cohen sent computer images of child pornography to a federal informant, prosecutors said.

Cohen, 31, later agreed to meet the informant’s 11-year-old stepson at a motel on the Jersey Shore, and was arrested there Friday with “a trunk full of apparatus to be used on the child,” said prosecutor John Kaye.

Cohen’s lawyer said he denies sending the images or going to the motel to have sex with a boy.

Grossman said Cohen was on the Internet trying to find the man who abused him as a child.

Cohen was fired Monday from his job teaching kindergarten at a New York City public school.