Mark Penfield Eichorn, a former preschool teacher in Abilene, was sentenced today to 30 years in federal prison, the statutory maximum, for producing child pornography. Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham announced the sentence.
Eichorn, 28, pleaded guilty in October 2024 to Production of Child Pornography after being indicted in June 2024. U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix also ordered Eichorn to pay $66,087.50 in restitution. Eichorn admitted to paying two young boys, ages 12 and 13, hundreds of dollars to record videos of themselves performing sexual acts on each other.
Acting U.S. Attorney Meacham stated, “Stopping horrendous acts against children, such as those in this case, is a core mission of this Office. We hope that the maximum punishment in this case serves as a message to other child predators, and that the victims and their families find some measure of comfort knowing that this abuser will be off the streets for a very long time.”
Court documents revealed that Eichorn had struggled with desires to sexually assault children since 2019 and continued to work with children during this time. He also admitted to involvement in child pornography trading groups online and confessed to possessing and trading prepubescent child pornography, including a video of a child between 10 and 12 years old engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
At the time of his arrest, Eichorn was a teacher at a local private school. He initiated contact with one of the victims, offering him $100 per week to be his “Sugar Daddy.”
At sentencing, Judge Hendrix stated that the maximum sentence was warranted for the “protection of the public,” adding, “I have to make a lot of difficult decisions. This is not one of them.”
The investigation was a joint effort by Homeland Security Investigations—Abilene Resident Agency, the Abilene Police Department, and the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia.
