Nixa Assistant Principal charged in Federal Court

An assistant principal at Nixa Junior High School in Nixa, Missouri, was charged in federal court with the sexual exploitation of a child for the purpose of producing child pornography.  41 year old Colby Fronterhouse, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Mo., with one count of producing child pornography. Fronterhouse was employed at the junior high school at the time of the alleged offense.

According to an affidavit filed in support of the federal criminal complaint, a Christian County sheriff’s deputy was contacted by a 13-year-old child victim and his father in September 2020. The child victim, identified in court documents as “John Doe,” had been engaging in a series of text messages for approximately a week with Fronterhouse, whom the affidavit says posed as a 14-year-old girl. Fronterhouse, posing as a 14-year-old, allegedly encouraged John Doe to transmit sexually explicit images of himself to Fronterhouse, made specific requests for poses or types of images, and had sexually explicit conversations with John Doe.

Investigators learned that the phone used by Fronterhouse was a burner phone number with a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) account, the affidavit says, but they were able to trace the account to Fronterhouse. Officers executed a search warrant at Fronterhouse’s residence on Tuesday, Jan. 26, and he was arrested. Investigators seized Fronterhouse’s cell phone and found evidence linking his cell phone to the burner account. Investigators confirmed that Fronterhouse had access to the child victim’s cell phone number through school records.