From classroom to prison: Florida educator planned to film the abuse and torture of a minor he met online, gets hefty sentence
Florida – A former Florida teacher has been given a 15-year prison sentence after admitting that he tried to se*ually abuse a kid and planned to record the torture. The sentencing comes after a case that investigators say started online and got worse over the course of several weeks, concluding with an arrest.
Matthew Christopher Yates, 31, was given a 15-year jail sentence by Senior U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan. Yates was additionally instructed to register as a se* offender and undergo ten years of supervised release after his prison sentence. He pleaded guilty on August 27, 2025.
On February 11, 2022, an undercover FBI agent pretended to be a 14-year-old girl online, which is when the investigation started, according to court filings. The agent replied to a post on a social media app from someone who called himself “English teacher.” Later, it was discovered that Yates owned that account. The post asked if any women wanted to be “rated by a teacher.”
The undercover agent informed Yates during their first online chat that she was 14 years old and in eighth grade. Yates said he was a teacher and then swiftly changed the subject to se*ual things, asking the child whether they had ever dreamt about a teacher. They sent each other pictures, and Yates made se*ual comments about how she looked.
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The texts kept coming from February 22 until March 11, 2022. Prosecutors claimed Yates emailed the individual he thought was a kid multiple photos, some of which were se*ually explicit. He asked to meet in person on March 8 and told her exactly what se*ual activities he wanted to do during the appointment.
Yates and the undercover agent confirmed plans to meet two days later. Yates suggested that they film the se*ual action on tape so the youngster might remember it. He stated he would record it on his phone and then delete the video so that no one else could see it.
Yates drove to a meeting place in Jacksonville that had already been set up on March 11, 2022. There, FBI officers detained him. A search of his car turned up a cell phone and a few condoms. Yates told police after his arrest that he thought he was meeting a 14-year-old girl he had met online and that he planned to have se* with her. He also said that he was the one who came up with the idea to shoot a video of the meeting.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.
