A former music teacher at Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge who was charged in state court in January with child pornography offenses is now facing federal charges, the Massachusetts US attorney’s office said Thursday.
Joshua DeWitte, 50, of Cambridge faces three counts of sexual exploitation of minors; he is accused of paying nearly $24,000 to a Baltimore man to produce child pornography of boys.
The Baltimore man, identified as 27-year-old Christopher Allan Tisoy, was also charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of minors, US Attorney Leah B. Foley’s office said in a statement.
The two men were ordered held following their initial appearance Thursday in federal court. Each is due back in court next week, the statement said.
At the time of his initial arrest, DeWitte was teaching at Buckingham Browne & Nichols Lower School, a private school in Cambridge. He was previously employed by Cambridge Public Schools, the Globe reported.
DeWitte was first flagged in December 2024 when a Snapchat file linked to his account was found to show the abuse of a boy between the ages of 8 and 10, the statement said.
Additional Snapchat records showed DeWitte had solicited explicit photos and videos from purported minors, shared some of his own, and discussed past and possible future in‑person meetups, according to the statement.
Cambridge police arrested him on Jan. 9 based on those findings; he was later released under court‑imposed conditions, the statement said.
The arrest resulted in the seizure and search of his phone, uncovering Telegram messages with Tisoy, a medical technologist at Baltimore’s Sinai Hospital who lived in the Philippines until September 2024, the statement said.
In those chats, they allegedly arranged for DeWitte to pay Tisoy to produce child pornography of boys in the Philippines to DeWitte’s specifications, the statement said.
The conversations identified four minor boys by name and arranged for pornography involving at least two of them in the Philippines.
Between July 3, 2023, and Dec. 27, 2024, DeWitte sent 87 payments to Tisoy, totaling approximately $23,752, in exchange for the videos, the statement said.
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