NORFOLK, Va. — A former assistant dean at a local college was sentenced Thursday to six years in prison for receiving images of child sexual abuse material, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
According to court documents, 37-year-old Robert Morris used a file-sharing program to provide more than 500 files depicting the sexual abuse of minors. This included children as young as infants provided to detectives in the Virginia Beach Police Department in December 2021.
Detectives then obtained a search warrant for his home. They seized a laptop that also contained additional files depicting the sexual abuse of minors, from social messaging applications, detectives say.
The release from the Department of Justice shows Morris was an assistant dean of students and systems administrator at Wave Leadership College, a religious institution in Virginia Beach, at the time of his arrest. However, a Wave Leadership College board member said that's not the case.
"Robert Morris was not the Assistant Dean of Students nor was he ever a paid employee of Wave Leadership College," Board Member Josh Kicker said in an email. "After a clean background check, he did volunteer for two months and administratively assist the Dean of Students with some work and IT services requests."
He was previously administratively separated from the U.S. Navy for misconduct, including sexual harassment, officials report.
