

Eric Michael Samuel (Photo courtesy of RiversideSheriff.org)

A Riverside County junior high science teacher who was arrested for taking inappropriate photos of female students was also found to have child pornography. One family friend insists he's innocent, however.

"He's a very good man," Laura Johnson told Fox 11, saying he not only taught two of her daughters and her niece but presided over a recent family wedding. "He married my daughter [and her husband] this October, he's a very close friend of the family. I'm just concerned what happens when he's found innocent of these charges."

In May, a number of students at Lakeside Middle School in Perris reported Eric Michael Samuel, 37, to school officials after they noticed he was taking photos of their "chests and buttocks," according to Riverside Sheriffs. Police were notified and served a search warrant on Samuel's home in Moreno Valley, where they found several videos and pictures containing child pornography on his computers, as well as weapons.

He was arrested yesterday and is now being held at the Southwest County Detention Center in Murrieta while the investigation continues. A $5,000 bail has been set.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to call investigator John Wyatt of the Perris Police Department at (951) 210-1000