Former Jeopardy! champion Winston Nguyen, who appeared on the game show in 2014, has been charged with soliciting sexually explicit images of children.
An ex-teacher at an elite private school, Nguyen was arrested in front of students in June, according to The New York Times, who revealed Nguyen had taught Math at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights.
It is purported that between October 2022 and May 2024, Nguyen pretended to be a teenager and “fellow student” on 11 separate occasions, on social media, and both solicited and attempted to solicit students into sending him “images of nudity and sexual performances,” according to prosecutors from the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.
Noam Galai/Getty Images for AOL
The 37-year-old Nguyen, who lives in Harlem, used two different Snapchat accounts to exchange messages with the children which included five girls and one boy, all between the ages of 13 and 15. The teens attended four different private schools in Brooklyn, including Saint Ann’s, Poly Prep Country Day School, Berkley Carroll School, and Packer Collegiate Institute.
Ultimately, Nguyen was charged with use of a child in a sexual performance, promoting a sexual performance by a child, and disseminating indecent material to a minor, among several other charges. Nguyen reportedly turned himself into prosecutors in Brooklyn on Thursday, July 25th, according to his lawyer Frank Rothman who told The New York Times, “We arranged for his surrender with the prosecutors and detectives… He showed up and will be processed like any other defendant.”
In addition to his most recent criminal charges, Nguyen was charged with grand larceny after he was accused of stealing more than $300,000 from an elderly couple he was hired to care for. At the time, it was reported that Nguyen used the money he stole from the 96-year-old blind man and his 92-year-old wife to buy trips to Florida as well as tickets to Broadway and ballet shows. Nguyen served five months in jail after pleading guilty to those grand larceny charges in June 2018.
When Nguyen appeared on Jeopardy! for two episodes in 2014, he’d been working as a home health aide. He earned just over $10,000 during his stint.