Former Otte janitor given 8-year prison sentence

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An Omaha man who was contracted as a janitor at Otte Blair Middle School and was found to be in possession of nude photos from a minor and sending nude photos to the victim was sentenced to eight years in prison and four years probation Tuesday in Washington County District Court.

Orlando Blair, 26, pleaded no contest to attempted visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct, a Class 3A felony; intentional child abuse with no serious bodily injury, a Class 3A felony; and enticement by an electronic communication device, a Class 4 felony.

Additionally, Blair was required to register as a sex offender for 25 years.

According to an arrest affidavit, Blair was arrested in May 2022 after students at Otte Blair Middle School told administration that a student had sent explicit photos of herself and was also sent explicit photos of Blair via a messenger application on her phone.

Blair was also found to have inappropriate contact with another Otte student.

Blair was not a district employee at Otte at the time of the incident, though he was contracted by the Blair Community Schools district.

Erik Petersen, chief deputy Washington County attorney, said he felt cases where adults in an education setting are inappropriate with minors are too common.

"I think there was probably a time and a culture in our country that these types of cases were aberrations," he said. "To be honest, now, you can't turn on the news without seeing a fact scenario very close to this one where a school administrator, teacher, athletic coach or a member of a school... has predated among a young male or young female during school hours.

"There's probably two places in this world that a young male or female should feel safe: one is in their home and the other should be in school. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore."

Petersen noted the parent of the first victim was contacted to discuss the plea negotiations and sentencing recommendation.

Marcus Sladek, Blair's attorney, said he felt Blair was taking responsibility for his actions.

"The interaction between Mr. Blair and this young girl was initiated by this young girl messaging him on Snapchat through a fake account," he said. "Orlando knows he was... the adult in the room here and needed to do better. At some point, obviously, he learns that, during the course of this communication, or sometime thereafter, that this is a middle school student. I think it's still undetermined when he learned that."

Blair spoke to the court and said he was willing to accept any sentence given to him.

"I just wanted to say I'm embarrassed to be in here, embarrassed that I failed my family, friends and my children. Also myself," he said. "I also failed for working in the school district, and felt that I was a distraction to the children at the middle school. I take full ownership for my actions."

Samson said despite Blair's low criminal history, he felt that Blair victimized himself despite being the adult in the incident, and also noted Blair communicated with other students at Otte via Snapchat.

"This incident involved two minors, middle school children," he said. "It involves your communication with these minor girls. You had inappropriate communication with (first victim)... while you were the janitor. That involved sexually-explicit photos of her being sent to you, which, if that occurred first, again, you're the adult in the room... it should have ended there. And it didn't. You sent a photograph of your genitals to her on Snapchat. The reports would suggest some of the texts were sent at the Otte school.

"When I was looking at the evaluation by Stan Carlson, a licensed mental health practitioner, you made a comment to him that you thought the police had twisted the facts and another comment that you were the victim, and you made that comment to the probation officer also. But when I go over these facts, Mr. Blair — and I do understand the assessments show you're a low risk to reoffend... the fact that you were a victim, I disagree on. Both of these girls were approximately 14 years of age and you're 25 or 26 when this happened. You are not the victim in this case. They are."