A former Riverhead High School teacher and junior varsity soccer coach was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison after admitting he solicited nude images from underage girls and sent them indecent images of himself, Suffolk County prosecutors said.
Ryan McCaffery, 38, of Ridge, was sentenced Oct. 21 after pleading guilty last month 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 Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney.
McCaffery will also serve five years of post-release supervision.
The investigation began Nov. 4, 2024, when the New York State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that someone had shared child sexual abuse material through the messaging app Kik, prosecutors said.
State Police executed a search warrant at McCaffery’s Ridge home on Jan. 17, 2025, and seized several electronic devices. A forensic examination found that between December 2024 and January 2025, McCaffery posed as a teenage boy on Snapchat using the name “c_chambers77” and communicated with multiple underage girls, prosecutors said.
According to the district attorney’s office, McCaffery added hundreds of random accounts while seeking to communicate with girls. Prosecutors said he sent indecent images of himself and requested nude images from minors.
Investigators also found that McCaffery attempted to view and purchase additional child sexual abuse images and videos and shared at least one such video with another Kik user, according to prosecutors.
Authorities determined during the investigation that McCaffery was employed as a social studies teacher at Riverhead High School and coached the school’s junior varsity boys soccer team. He resigned from his teaching position Feb. 5, 2025, and was arrested by State Police on May 12, 2025.
McCaffery pleaded guilty Sept. 21 before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis.
“Adults have a responsibility to protect children, not expose them to sexually explicit material,” Tierney said. “The defendant’s conduct was deeply disturbing and wholly unacceptable.”
The district attorney’s office said McCaffery has also been convicted and sentenced for similar crimes in Bergen County, 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.
Photo: Ryan McCaffery, a former Riverhead High School teacher and soccer coach, was sentenced to three years in prison for sending indecent material to underage girls. (SCDA)
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