Former St. Paul teacher must pay damages for child porn

Pioneer Press: A federal judge has ordered former St. Paul teacher Gregg Alan Larsen to pay $240,000 to a man who was once his foster son for using him in the production of child pornography.

Pierre Larsen, a foster child who was adopted by Larsen when he was 11, won the judgment on Wednesday, March 14.

It was only the second time that a plaintiff has successfully used the federal “Masha’s Law” to obtain restitution for a victim of child pornography, said Pierre Larsen’s attorney, Patrick Noaker of Anderson and Associates. The law was named for a Russian orphan adopted by an American man who began abusing her the first night she arrived at his home – and recording the abuse for distribution to others.

“We really are doing this as a deterrent,” Noaker said. “We would love it if just one person thinks about engaging in that (child pornography) world and they just think in the back of their heads, ‘Oh, geez, what if I get sued?’

“And I want people to worry so they won’t do it,” he said.

Larsen, 50, of Minneapolis was convicted in 2010 of possession and production of child pornography, which he also put online. He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

According to the prosecutor, Larsen had taken photos and video of Pierre Larsen, another adopted son, foster sons, the boys’ friends and his students with a camera hidden in his home bathroom.

Larsen worked as a special education teacher at Central High School from 2003 to 2009. He also supervised the film and paintball clubs.

Pierre Larsen, now 23, had testified during his adopted father’s trial that he thought he had found a “real parent” to save him from the abusive one who began raising him.

“But unfortunately the price of admission was he had to endure the sexual assault and pornography,” Noaker said.

Larsen pleaded guilty to the criminal charges and said at his November 2010 sentencing, “What I did was heinous.”

U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen ordered the judgment in the civil lawsuit.

Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522.