Charge: Married Seattle teacher barraged girl with lewd messages 'Oh the things I would love to show you how to do'

A Seattle second-grade teacher accused of soliciting sex from a teen girl after harassing her anonymously online now faces a sex crime charge.

King County prosecutors claim View Ridge Elementary School teacher Matthew Snyder exchanged sexually explicit text messages with a 16-year-old girl. Snyder, 40, is alleged to have anonymously sent a dozen sexually charged messages to the girl, who found them wrong and disturbing.

“At what age do you regard a guy no longer being a young stud but instead a dirty old man?” Snyder said in one message, according to charging papers.

“Oh the things I would love to show you how to do,” he is alleged to have said in another.

Snyder was placed on administrative leave on Nov. 25. At the time, View Ridge interim principal Kathy Jolly noted Snyder was not suspected of abusing any students currently enrolled at the northeast Seattle school.

Writing the court, Carla Carlstrom, a senior deputy prosecutor with King County, said Snyder’s unwanted advances violated the trust placed in him as an educator. The harassment began after the girl volunteered in Snyder’s classroom.

“When she agreed and began to volunteer, (Snyder) began sending sexually suggestive text messages to (her) as well as ‘anonymous’ chat messages through a social networking site telling her he had a ‘crush’ on her, asking her to ‘twerk’ for him, and asking about her experience with men,” Carlstrom said in court papers.

“The defendant abused his trust as a teacher and authority figure to (the girl), who was volunteering in his classroom,” the prosecutor continued.

According to charging papers, Snyder met the girl while she was a student at View Ridge and remained in contact with her as she moved on to middle and high school. Snyder texted with her occasionally to “see how she was,” Seattle Police Department Detective Lauren Truscott said in court papers, before asking her in late October to volunteer.

Truscott said Snyder’s messages to the girl gradually became more sexually suggestive.

“Can’t get image out of my mind of you mentioning you sitting on someone’s face,” Snyder said in a Nov. 15 text message, according to charging papers.

Around the same time, the girl began receiving anonymous, sexually charged messages from a self-described “older gent” on a social-networking site. Investigators contend the sender was Snyder.

“If I’m going to be your ‘daddy,’ I certainly hope that you’re able to keep this little charade our secret so your real daddy doesn’t find out whose been getting you all hot 'n' bothered!” Snyder is alleged to have said in a Nov. 18 exchange. “If you’re down with learning a little about how to make a fella truly happy would you please post a pic of you with pigtails to your profile please?”

Snyder – still anonymous on the Ask.fm exchange – then asked the girl to test the word “Lolita” to the person she suspected had left the lewd messages, Truscott said in court papers. It was a reference to Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” a novel describing an older man’s infatuation with a girl.

Hoping to reveal Snyder as the correspondent, the girl texted him “Lolita” and received a reply from Snyder. According to charging papers, Snyder told the girl he had a “crush” on her and then attempted to defend himself when the girl pointed out that he is a married father.

“I can fantasize too, can’t I?” Snyder asked the girl by text, according to charging papers.

Snyder went on to explain that he wanted a sexual relationship with the girl, according to charging papers. The girl wanted none of it.

“This is really wrong and it does disturb me,” she told her former teacher in a Nov. 22 message. She told her parents of the incident later that day and then contacted police.

Truscott said she contacted Snyder about the allegations. He declined to discuss them.

Snyder, a Wedgwood resident, has been charged with communication with a minor for immoral purposes. He has not been jailed in the matter.

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Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.