A Kentucky middle school teacher is charged in Washington County with sending sexually explicit messages and videos to an investigator posing online as a 15-year-old girl, according to the complaint.
Elmer Mitchell Fields, 57, is charged in Washington County District Court with engaging in electronic communication relating or describing sexual conduct with a child, in a complaint filed October 30.
According to the complaint, on July 28, 2026, human trafficking investigators created an undercover account on a messaging app, posing as a 15-year-old girl. Officers communicated from locations in Washington County. The undercover account received a message from the username rise_above0, who introduced himself as a 54-year-old married high school teacher and said he was home alone on break.
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The complaint says the undercover account responded that she was 15 years old. Rise_above0 asked about her grade and whether she had a boyfriend, then began asking about her sexual experience. The complaint says he described sexual acts with the undercover account and sent multiple sexually explicit audio and video files. The videos did not show his face but included a massage gun and distinctive bedding.
Investigators executed a search warrant for the account and found that rise_above0 had multiple conversations with other users who said they were females between 13 and 16 years old. Many of those conversations were sexual in nature. Rise_above0 discussed his school schedule and specific dates when he was on break.
Officers traced an IP address used by rise_above0 to an address in Viper, Kentucky. Investigators linked that address to Elmer Mitchell Fields. The complaint states that the school district in Hazard, Kentucky, had the same start date and breaks mentioned by rise_above0. Fields is a teacher at a middle school in that district.
Officers found a local news interview of Fields at the school and matched his voice to the audio files sent to the undercover account. On October 28, 2026, Kentucky law enforcement executed a search warrant at Fields’ home, seizing multiple mobile devices, computers, the massage gun seen in the videos and bedding visible in the files sent to the undercover account.
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Jurisdictional Context
Washington County, on the eastern edge of the Twin Cities metro, is served by the Washington County Attorney’s Office through the Tenth Judicial District. Felony cases are heard at the Washington County Government Center in Stillwater.
