City News Service
A former elementary school teacher who taught in Burbank and Hollywood was sentenced Thursday to 30 years behind bars for making pornographic images and videos of two of his ex-students.
Sean D. Sigler, 56, of Burbank, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt, who described Sigler’s conduct as “inexcusable,” adding that “ruining the lives of minors is unspeakable.”
Sigler, who pleaded guilty in September 2019 to two counts of production of child pornography, previously taught 5th grade at Bret Harte Elementary School in Burbank and Gardner Street Elementary School in Hollywood.
The Burbank Leader, then owned by the Los Angeles Times, reported in 2019 that Sigler was one victim’s 5th-grade teacher at Gardner. He kept in contact with her after she left his classroom, using his position as former teacher and mentor to gain her and her parent’s trust, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California said, adding that Sigler then exploited that trust to gain sexual access to the girl.
Over the course of 15 months, Sigler regularly transported her to his home, where he gave her alcoholic beverages and pills. He began having sex with the girl when she was 15, and created multiple sexually explicit videos and photos of her, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
He also created child pornography by modifying a pornographic image of the minor victim’s body and digitally superimposing the face of a different under-age former student, according to a January 2018 law enforcement search of Sigler’s digital devices, which also contained numerous images and videos of his sexual acts with the victim, as well as more than 5,000 images of child pornography depicting unknown and previously identified pre-pubescent minors.
Sigler agreed to forfeit $271,506 in cash seized by the government, which constitutes the proceeds from the sale of the home where he produced child pornography.
Sharon Cuseo, then the assistant superintendent for the Burbank Unified School District, told the Leader in 2019 that the district put Sigler on leave after he was arrested that year, and that he was later let go.
Burbank Leader staff writer Christian Leonard contributed to this report.
