A former Fauquier County assistant principal who admitted to trading child pornography on the Internet was sentenced to five years behind bars Friday.

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Joshua Myers was the assistant principal at Greenville Elementary School at the time of his arrest and was slated to become the principal at Brumfield Elementary School in July.

He had earlier pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography.

"While working as an elementary school administrator, Mr. Myers gathered a child porn collection focused on the sexual abuse of young boys and included vile pictures of violent sexual assaults on small children," said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride. "He told an undercover agent that he had sexually assaulted boys as young as nine, and agents found online chats he had with more than 40 individuals involving child pornography, sex with children, and grooming children to be sexually abused. This case is a sobering reminder that a sexual predator is often someone familiar, and we are committed to doing everything in our power to remove these predators from our communities."

Court documents show that Myers was identified in an online chat room by an undercover officer. He provided the officer a password to access folders on his computers with images and videos of child pornography. He also told authorities during the chat that he had a sexual interest in young boys.

He was arrested on June 15.