Rumor had it that Freedom High School had a "sexting" problem. Sexting is when students distribute nude pictures of each other on their cell phones.

The Principal, Christine Forester, told Ting-Yi Oei, the Assistant Principal, to investigate this rumor.

Oei's investigation led him to a 16-year-old boy. Oei and the school's safety and security specialist met with the student to ask if he knew anything about the photos.

"He says, 'Oh yeah, I've got one on my cell phone,'" Oei recalls.

The image showed only the torso of a girl which was later determined to be a 17-year old student wearing only underpants, her arms mostly covering her breasts. The boy claimed he didn't know who sent him the photo or who the girl was.

Oei says he showed the image to his boss, Principal Christine Forester, who told him to preserve a copy on his office computer for the investigation. Oei didn't know how to transfer the image from the boy's cell phone, so the teen sent the picture to Oei's phone, and told him how to forward it to his work e-mail address. When the process was complete, Oei instructed the student to delete the image from his phone.

Oei and the school security specialist interviewed more students, but were unable to find additional pictures or identify the girl in the photo. Oei concluded she probably wasn't a student at the school. Relieved, he says he reported his findings to the principal, thinking the matter was done.

A few weeks later, the boy who was caught with the photo on his cell phone got in trouble again. He pantsed a girl in class. The school suspended the boy for 10 days. When the boy's mother had learned about the earlier photo incident, she went crazy. She was angry that Oei did not report the picture to her. She blackmailed Oei and said that if he didn't get the suspension of our son revoked, that she would go to the police.

When Oei refused, the woman went to the police about the photo. Sheriff's investigators came to the school to investigate the sexting issue. They helped Oei recover the photo from his cell phone and later determined the girl in the photo was a student at the school.

A month later, the first charges were filed against Oei: failure to report suspicion of child abuse, a misdemeanor. The charge alleged that Oei had a legal duty to report the girl's photo to her parents, and to state agencies or law enforcement.

The photo didn't show sexual activity or genitalia, and even the sheriff's office conceded it was "inappropriate" but not "criminal" -- making it unclear what the "child abuse" was supposed to be.

As a matter of law, Oei was only required to report suspected abuse to his principal, which he'd done. It was then Forester's job to report it to authorities if needed.

Not only was Principal Forester the one who ordered Oei to investigate the sexting, Principal Forester was the one who was responsible for notifying family and authorities.

But Principal Forester's bad deeds didn't stop there, she refused to stick up for Oei. She didn't even tell the police that they had it wrong and that she had ordered the investigation and that Oei had reported back to her and the she made the call not to contact authorities or police. She let Oei be hanged out to dry.

Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Plowman, the prosecutor, blackmailed Oei. He told him to confess to the misdemeanor and resign, or see his misdemeanor charge bumped up to a felony.

Oei refused, and on August 11, a grand jury indicted him for possession of child porn, a crime that carries a possible sentence of five years. The misdemeanor charge was dropped.

Oei, a Quaker of Chinese and Dutch descent, a former Fullbright exchange teacher, Peace Corps volunteer and 30-year veteran educator, was arrested nine days later at school.

Transferred from his school and isolated from colleagues, Oei spent $150,000 and a year of his life defending himself against a cowboy county prosecutor.

Oei's defense attorney, Steven Stone, filed a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the photo didn't constitute child pornography. In a ruling on Tuesday, Loudoun Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne agreed. Citing a long history of state appeals court decisions, Horne noted that nudity alone is not enough to qualify an image as child pornography. The image must be "sexually explicit" and "lewd."

"As a matter of law, the photograph does not meet the requirements established by our appellate courts and the felony charge will be dismissed," the judge wrote. "[T]he two misdemeanor counts will be dismissed as well."

Despite the ruling, Plowman, the prosecutor, stands by his actions.

But the public doesn't think as highly of Plowman as he thinks of himself.

Here a few comments from the public:

"Plowman is a maniacal SOB.. Just a pathetic human being.. Welcome to the new AMERICA! Power hungry and goes after a man who honestly tried to do the right thing."

"It's a shame that the 'zero tolerance/zero intelligence' prosecutor feels that the administrator trying to investigate the details of a problem and retain evidence of said problem is in violation of the law. Sadder that the rest of the staff failed to support their colleague. Saddest that from now on, even simpler problems will now be forwarded to the police."

"I like how the prosecutor justified his actions because Mr. Oei was "unwilling" to take responsibility for his actions. Did he not think about the head principal who actually ordered the photo to be taken? Did he not think why the boy with the photo's mother would claim child abuse? Every lie tells another truth. It's amazing how only a few people can nearly destroy someone's reputation and put them in jail."

Blackmail is defined as, "The extortion of goods, money, or the procuring of an illegal act by a threat, in writing, of criminal prosecution or the destruction of a person’s reputation or social standing or personal injury."

Oei was blackmailed twice! First by the 16-year-old boy's mother who wanted Oei to revoke the suspension else she would file a false police report about Oei. Next, it was the overly zealous prosecutor, who wanted to look like he was "tough on crime", who blackmailed Oei into pleading guilty to a misdemeanor and resign his position or have his charges upped from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Both times Oei refused to give in to the blackmailers demands and both times the blackmailers made good on their threats. Oei should be able to go after both the 16-year-old boy's mother, and the Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Plowman for slander and defamation of character.

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