A former Riverhead High School teacher and junior varsity boys soccer coach pleaded guilty to soliciting nude images from underage girls while posing as a teenager online, Suffolk County prosecutors said.
Ryan McCaffery, 38, of Ridge, pleaded guilty Monday, Sept. 21, to two counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to minors as a sexually motivated felony and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the investigation began after the New York State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a November 2024 tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that someone had shared child sexual abuse material through the messaging app Kik.
State police executed a search warrant at McCaffery’s Ridge home in January 2025 and seized several electronic devices.
A forensic examination found that McCaffery had posed as a teenage boy on Snapchat under the username “c_chambers77” between December 2024 and January 2025, prosecutors said. He added hundreds of accounts in an effort to contact girls, sent explicit images of himself and requested nude images from minors, according to the district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said McCaffery also attempted to view and purchase additional child sexual abuse images and videos and shared at least one such video with another Kik user.
Investigators determined that McCaffery worked as a social studies teacher and junior varsity boys soccer coach at Riverhead High School. He resigned from his teaching position on Feb. 5, 2025, and was arrested by state police on May 12, 2025.
“As a teacher, this defendant had a responsibility to safeguard children, not exploit them,” Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said.
McCaffery is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 21 and is expected to receive three years in prison followed by five years of post-release supervision, prosecutors said.
The district attorney’s office said McCaffery has also been convicted of similar crimes in New Jersey.
The Suffolk County case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Sean Murphy and Melissa Grier of the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau. The investigation was conducted by New York State Police Investigator Ryan Delaney of the Computer Crimes Unit.
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