DISCOVERY BAY — A middle school teaching aide was caught with bags of girls underwear and a sex doll designed to look like a prepubescent child, according to a report by the cops who searched his home.
The aide, 25-year-old Discovery Bay resident Dominic Vannucci, now faces a federal indictment as well as state child pornography charges. A federal grand jury indicted him last month on charges of receipt and possession of child pornography, meaning Vannucci faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years if he’s convicted.
The case against Vannucci started with a relatively common tip about a person accessing child sexual abuse material online. It has since sprawled into even more disturbing allegations that Vannucci took lewd photographs of students and stole children’s underwear, according to investigators.
Vannucci is in the Contra Costa jail system being held without bail, with an arraignment set for Aug. 6 in Oakland, court records show.
Authorities say the investigation started by a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited children, which alerted authorities in Contra Costa to suspicious net activity at Vannucci’s home. Police say they narrowed the suspicious account to a Gmail address, “dominicvannucciiscool,” which was relatively easy to identify Vannucci from.
In a June raid of Vannucci’s home, police say they found two bags and a headphones case full of girls underwear and a small sex doll resembling a prepubescent child. Contra Costa prosecutors charged Vannucci with a mix of felonies and misdemeanors, including more than a dozen counts of taking pictures of students at the Excelsior Middle School in Byron, where he worked, court records show.
Some of the pictures were aimed up students’ dresses or down their shirts, authorities said. Vannucci reportedly worked in a class for kids requiring special education, and was employed at All God’s Children Christian School in Discovery Bay before the middle school in Byron, investigators said.
Investigators say that they found evidence Vannucci stole underwear from students, who would sometimes be equipped with a second set of undergarments when they went to class.
Authorities say they also uncovered evidence Vannucci had accessed footage of young children being sexually abused. In the June raid they seized nine electronic devices, including a phone, computers, and memory storage devices, court records show.