Driving instructor coerced teen students to create child porn in California, feds say

A private California driving instructor based in San Mateo coerced teen girls, including some of his students, to create child pornography for him, federal prosecutors said.

Johnnatan Zelaya Izaguirre, 39, of Redwood City also reached out online to girls ages 15 to 17, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Northern California said in a news release.

Along with enticing the teens to create sexually explicit videos, he offered to manage their video sales and purchased sex toys for them to use in new videos, the release said.

Zelaya “used his position of authority and the powers of social media” to prey on girls, falsely telling them he worked in law enforcement, prosecutors said. Although he graduated from a police academy, he never held a law enforcement job.

He groomed teens by “complimenting their appearance, developing sexualized friendships with them, offering to manage their explicit content online and offering them financial rewards for the creation of explicit content,” the release said.

Authorities arrested Zelaya in January after he tried to entice an undercover police officer — who was posing as a 17-year-old driving student — into having sex and doing a photo shoot with him, prosecutors said. He was arrested at a planned meet-up with the officer.

He is charged with coercion and enticement of a minor, receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography, the release said.

Authorities ask that anyone with information call the FBI at 415-533-7400.

This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 9:19 AM with the headline "Driving instructor coerced teen students to create child porn in California, feds say."