Affidavit: Teacher had hundreds of sexual images of children

A former South Lake Tahoe teacher was pictured with children in sexual acts and voiced his love for wearing boys' cartoon underwear, according to an affidavit which contained details of images found in his possession.

Karsten Gronwold, 49, a former second-grade teacher at the Lake Tahoe Environmental Science Magnet School, allegedly used a Lake Tahoe Unified School District laptop to access child pornography, the 11-page affidavit stated.

The report, submitted by Detective Vincent Recce with the Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force, part of the Sacramento County sheriff's Department, was filed Tuesday.

It contained no details of Gronwold doing any illegal activity at the school, but questions remain over whether the children depicted in the photographs were students or from the Lake Tahoe region.

The document states the investigation began when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 15 reports regarding a Yahoo! account reportedly tied to Gronwold.

On Friday, investigators went to Gronwold's house.

A search of his car and home found a palm pilot, the district's laptop computer, two portable Universal Serial Bus (USB) drives, one thumb drive, a digital media card, floppy disks, zip disks, two video cameras and four computer towers, the affidavit stated.

Gronwold was taken in for questioning.

Throughout the affidavit, a Yahoo! and myspace.com account name of "kaboyb41b" was referenced as containing hundreds of sexual images of children, a fondness for trading such pictures and expressing a love for wearing boys' underwear.

"A preliminary review of this laptop was completed at the sheriff's office and officers identified Yahoo! user id kaboyb41b in the computer," Recce's affidavit read. "Based on my experience and training, this indicates that the laptop was used to access the Yahoo! account by this name."

The computer held at least 25 images of boys younger than 12 years old performing sexual acts with "other boys and, in some cases, adult males," the affidavit states.

One picture in the evidence seized in the search warrant depicted two young boys in their bathing suits at a hot tub believed to be at the Gronwold residence, the affidavit states.

In the interview, Gronwold said he "didn't think" his computer held child pornography and denied the Yahoo! account was his, the affidavit states.

As the interview continued, Gronwold admitted to having a myspace.com account associated with kaboyb41b, the affidavit states.

The account on the Web site, used for social networking, has a personal description section on the profile. According to the affidavit, one portion of the kaboyb41b account on Myspace.com read:

"My favorite ones to wear are Funpals, because that's what most boys in my neighborhood wear too. I LOVE em!!! It's cute seeing the faces of the lil ones when they see that I'm wearing the same kind of underpants that they are wearing ;) ...."

The user of the Yahoo! e-mail address kaboyb41b2005 is also a suspect in a Gainsville, Fla., child-molestation investigation, the affidavit read.

Lt. Bob Lozito, operations commander of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department division of the Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force, said the photos involved in the investigation will be evaluated to determine whether they were old pictures circulating on the Internet or recently made.

The images of children will also be matched against a database belonging to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

No other arrests have been made in the case, Lozito said.