Fairfax County police have filed new charges against a Reston man who was already facing sexual assault and child porn allegations.
Arturo Elmore-Adon, 25, was charged yesterday (Tuesday) with seven counts of unlawful filming after detectives found videos he had allegedly taken of four girls, all of them Fairfax County Public Schools students, the Fairfax County Police Department announced today.
Police believe Elmore-Adon filmed the videos at Fox Mill Elementary School in Herndon and Churchill Elementary School in McLean, where he worked as an independent contractor for after-school programs from September 2022 through May 2023, FCPD officials said at a 1:30 p.m. press conference.
Elmore-Adon worked at other schools during that period, but there’s no evidence at the moment that there were other victims at those schools, according to FCPD Captain Dan Spital.
“All four victims were physically unharmed,” the FCPD said in a press release.
According to Spital, the department launched an investigation on Aug. 9 after a 7-year-old girl reported that a man who was following her and her mother in a grocery store — presumably, the Safeway — at Reston’s South Lakes Village Shopping Center had touched her inappropriately.
Detectivese identified Elmore-Adon as the man based on a review of the grocery store’s surveillance footage.
“They determined that the man had been following this family from aisle to aisle,” Spital said. “At one point, the suspect placed his cell phone under the young girl’s shorts and took a picture.”
Elmore-Adon was arrested on Aug. 12 and charged with aggravated sexual battery and unlawful creation of an image of another person under 18.
He was then charged on Aug. 30 with 15 counts of possessing child sexual abuse material after detectives uncovered over 400 videos and images downloaded from “various international websites” on his phone, according to the FCPD.
Police found seven videos of Fox Mill and Churchill students that appeared to have been “surreptitiously filmed by either hiding his phone in a bathroom or by placing his phone underneath” their pants, shorts or skirts, Spital said. The victims are all between 6 and 8 years old.
Detectives are still “combing through” the materials to identify any additional victims, Spital said at the press conference.
“We are very thankful for the hard work of our detectives and our victim services advocates, as well as our partnership with the schools,” he said. “We’ve been working tirelessly on this case…for the last 25 days. But we are asking the public if anybody knows Elmore-Adon, if anyone may have been…victimized by him, or has had any contact or detectives want to hear from you.”
Elmore-Adon’s work at FCPS was through a vendor of Baroody Camps, a Falls Church-based organization that provides after-school programs and summer camps, according to FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid.
Though he wasn’t employed by FCPS, the school system’s human resources department conducted a background check and cleared him in 2022, Reid said, calling the situation “heartbreaking.”
“We know that any time there’s a situation like this, it is a shock to our community,” Reid said. “So, we are committed to communication that will be ongoing on the situation as appropriate. We are sensitive also, and want to make sure that the families directly involved feel our full support and that we don’t in any way cause any further trauma to the children or families in that situation.”
Elmore-Adon now faces 24 different felony charges. After a bond hearing this morning, he remains in custody at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center without bond. A preliminary hearing in Fairfax County General District Court is currently scheduled for 2 p.m. on Dec. 23.
