FLORIDA (WLIO) — A former Delphos teacher was sentenced to 44 years in prison on child pornography charges.
Douglas Sanders was sentenced on 40 charges of possessing child pornography in Florida on June 5.
According to the Office of The State Attorney, 12th Judicial Circuit, Florida, Sanders was arrested in 2021 by the North Port Police Department in Florida. During their investigation, they found 214,000 child pornography files, either electronic or physical, locked in safes.
The judge also took Sanders’ time in Delphos into account before sentencing. The teacher resigned from Delphos in 2018 and moved to Florida after he was being investigated for inappropriate behavior, including filming female students during activities and walking into the girls’ locker room when students were inside.
Sanders will have to register as a sex offender when he is released.
June 9, 2025, Press Release from the Office of the State Attorney, 12th Judicial Circuit, Florida:
State Attorney Ed Brodsky’s office announced today that on Thursday June 5, 2025, Circuit Court Judge Thomas W. Krug sentenced Douglas Ben Sanders to just over 44 years in prison on 40 counts of Possession of Child Pornography.  After his prison sentence, Sanders will be supervised by the Department of Corrections on sex offender probation for the rest of his natural life.  He was also designated as a sexual offender and will be required to register as such upon release.
Sanders was arrested in September of 2021 after the North Port Police Department opened an investigation into two safes that were found in his home. The safes contained hard drives, printed child pornography images, and personal effects.  After executing search warrants on the electronic devices found in the safes and the safes themselves, detectives discovered additional child pornography files. Over 214,000 child pornography files were found when the investigation was completed, and many of the files depicted sexual battery being committed on young children.
Before moving to North Port, Florida, Sanders was employed by the school system in Delphos, Ohio until the end of the 2018 school year. He was investigated during his time as a teacher for inappropriate behavior with female students, including filming them doing dances/stretches and “accidentally” walking into the locker room when female students were inside. Sanders had admitted these incidents happened before his resignation pending the outcome of the investigation by the school system, and acknowledged what he did was inappropriate. The Judge heard this evidence at the sentencing hearing on June 5 and took it into account when handing down the sentence.
The prosecutor in the case, Assistant State Attorney S. Ethan Dunn commented, “The enduring pain caused by the production of Child Sexual Abuse Material is unfathomable. When people like Doug Sanders get sexual gratification from this material, they continue to re-victimize the most vulnerable members of our society that were taken advantage of in the worst ways imaginable. Thanks to the efforts of the detectives with the North Port Police Department, those that brought this to their attention, the collaboration with Sanders’ former colleagues in Ohio, and the Court’s sentence in this case, Doug Sanders can never victimize children of any community ever again.  This sends a strong message to those wishing to prey on children: you will be found, you will be prosecuted, and you will go to prison.”
