Football Coach Arrested on Accusations of Filming Children in the Showers By Madison E. Goldberg

A Texas middle school teacher and football coach is facing eight federal counts of sexually exploiting children by producing child pornography.

Caleb Elliott, who worked as a sixth-grade social studies teacher and football coach at Celina Independent School District’s Moore Middle School in Celina, Texas, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday, Nov. 12, according to court records viewed by PEOPLE.

Elliott, 26, is charged with coercing the eight victims “to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct, using the internet and digital devices he owned and possessed,” the indictment alleges.

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The charges allege that between April 8 and Oct. 2, Elliott “did employ, use, persuade, induce, entice, and coerce any minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depiction of such conduct, knowing … that such visual depiction would be transported and transmitted,” according to the court documents.

In addition to the eight federal counts, Elliott is named as a co-defendant in a lawsuit filed by multiple families against the Celina Independent School District. The suit alleges that in one incident, “Elliott took aside minor plaintiff John Doe and confiscated his backpack, telling Doe that he had to do jumping jacks fully nude as punishment to get it back,” according to the complaint.

“Our lawsuit was filed very shortly after Caleb Elliot was arrested on behalf of three families that had been victimized by his locker room recording of their young boys,” attorney Paul Herz tells PEOPLE. “Since then, that lawsuit has grown to about a dozen families.”

“We’ve learned a lot just in the short time the lawsuit has been around, that this involves boys of varying ages, as young as 12 and as old as 15,” Herz added. Herz is representing a group of families in a civil lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages against Celina ISD.

PEOPLE reached out to an attorney for Elliott for comment.

“We hope to really accomplish a lot in uncovering the truth for these families, and that’s what they’ve told me is my prime directive, not to recover money, not to get them big settlement checks, but to fact find,” Herz said of the case’s discovery phase.

The federal indictment comes after Elliott was arrested on Nov. 7, according to Collin County Jail records. Elliott was arrested on suspicion of “sexual performance of a child, employ induce/authorize,” and is being held on a $350,000 bond. He was initially arrested in October and was later released prior to the most recent allegations.

On Oct. 27, he permanently surrendered his teaching certificate, according to Texas Education Agency records viewed by PEOPLE.

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The civil lawsuit alleges that Elliott had a relationship with a student while he taught and coached at Celina High School during the 2022-2023 school year. It further alleges that Elliott was “quietly” transferred within the district to Moore Middle School after the district was made aware of the alleged abuse.

Herz alleges that Elliott continued the relationship once the individual turned 18 years old — and that the individual later obtained employment at the same school. The individual, who has not been identified at this time, is not pursuing legal action in the civil lawsuit against Elliott at this time.

If convicted, Elliott faces a penalty of 30 years in prison per count.

PEOPLE has reached out to Celina ISD, the TEA, and DFPS for comment.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.