Three former debaters from different parts of the country, who are not the students at the basis of the charges, said in interviews that Mr. Cruz made inappropriate comments to them online when they were in high school. One, who attended a high school in the southwest, said that at Mr. Cruz’s request, he started sending Mr. Cruz pictures of himself when he was 16 or 17. Later, Mr. Cruz began paying him to send him nude pictures, though it was unclear how old the man was by then. (It is illegal to knowingly solicit or receive sexually suggestive photographs of a person under 18.)

Mr. Cruz has not been charged with a crime in connection with the three ex-debaters. Another of them, Eric Fischer, now 23, said Mr. Cruz sent him an AOL instant message out of the blue when he was a junior on the debate team at Byram Hills High School in Westchester. Mr. Cruz was friendly, and “used a lot of emoticons,” he said. A correspondence developed.

“Somehow we got into talking about the clothes I wore,” Mr. Fischer said. “I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I have this green polo shirt that I really like.’ He was like, ‘Wow, if I ever saw you in that I don’t know what I’d do.’ ”

Mr. Fischer didn’t tell anyone. He said that was partly because he didn’t feel threatened — Mr. Cruz never did anything inappropriate in person — and also because Mr. Cruz was a powerful person in the debate world who could influence which debaters got in to important tournaments.

“It was kind of like, this relationship, as long as I keep it at a distance, is benefiting my debate career,” he said, adding, “He definitely took a little bit of advantage of his position in the debate world.”

Jonathan Cruz grew up in Great Neck, Long Island, the only child of Jose Antonio Cruz, an immigrant from Spain who drove a delivery truck, and Debra Cruz, a teacher. His maternal grandfather was an executive at an aerospace company.

Mr. Cruz became interested in politics at age 4, the first time he understood that the president at the time, Ronald Reagan, “was a real person,” according to his lawyer, Steve Zissou. “From that point on he was hooked,” Mr. Zissou said. Students would later recall Mr. Cruz peppering his United States Government classes with lively anecdotes to keep his students entertained, like the one about the portly President William Howard Taft who supposedly got stuck in a bathtub.