The Boston Globe45%
Belmont Middle School teacher arraigned on child pornography offenses 8%
By Bryan Hecht32%
7/27/2026, 9:32:12 AM
Keywords: Belmont, Child Pornography, Teacher, Arrest, Leon T Dyer, Belmont Middle School, Camp Avoda
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Loss Aversion, and Pessimism Bias, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 11.6% saturation with 60 hits. Analysis detected 626 faulty-reasoning hits from 517 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 21.8% and a BS Rank of 8% (21,916 of 23,683 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 92.50% of the article peer group.
A longtime middle school teacher in Belmont admitted to possessing child pornography but said none were images of children he taught or oversaw at a boys camp in Middleborough where he worked, prosecutors said Monday in Cambridge District Court.
Leon T.
Dyer, 45, of Belmont, pleaded not guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography.
His bail was set at $7,500.
The offenses against Dyer, whose lawyer<b> </b>Richard J.
Sweeney described him as a single man with no children, stem from two separate searches of his electronic devices, prosecutors said.
State Police obtained a warrant that led to the discovery of multiple child sexual abuse images on Dyer’s devices, Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline McCormick said in court.
The investigation was spurred by reports from Google to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that child sex abuse material was being stored on one of its accounts<b> </b>on January 1.
Officials launched an investigation and identified Dyer after receiving information regarding the activity on July 12, according to a police report.
On July 25, police executed a search warrant at Dyer’s home and found about a dozen “additional and different” sex abuse images on his iPhone, McCormick said.
In January, shortly after his activity was flagged by Google, Dyer filed a police report alleging his accounts had been hacked, police in Belmont said.
“When he was confronted by the evidence that the State Police had, he did admit to downloading the images,” McCormick said, adding that Dyer was “adamant that they are all downloaded off the internet ... [and] that he never took photos of any of the children entrusted to his care.”
Judge David Frank ordered Dyer to stay away from all public schools in Belmont, including Belmont Middle School where he has worked as a teacher for more than 18 years, and Camp Avoda, a boys’ overnight summer camp in Middleborough where he has been head counselor for more than 20 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Dyer was banned from the town’s public schools<b> </b>and had his school-issued technology accounts suspended after he was arrested over the weekend, officials announced.
Frank also ruled that he should be barred from seeking employment or volunteering with anyone under the age of 18.
Dyer was further ordered to stay away from Chenery Upper Elementary, a district school near his house where he has helped coordinate overnight trips, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Dyer, a Minnesota native, moved to Massachusetts in 2007 and has lived in Belmont for more than a decade with no prior criminal record, according to his attorney.
In a statement on Sunday, Belmont Public Schools Superintendent Jill Geiser said that Dyer had been properly vetted before his hiring.
“We have no information at this time to suggest that this individual engaged in any inappropriate conduct with BPS students, on BPS property, or otherwise in connection with his employment with BPS,” Geiser said.
Dyer is due back in court on Sept.
17.
Bryan Hecht can be reached at bryan.hecht@globe.com.
Follow him on Instagram IG:bhechtjournalism.
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