Former Desert Mirage High teacher denied appeal on sex charges
An appellate court today upheld the conviction of a former Desert Mirage High School teacher who arranged to meet with a person he thought was a 14-year-old girl in Imperial County.
Anthony Robert Korwin, 59, of Vista, was sentenced last April to three years in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender.
Korwin tried to appeal one of his charges — contacting a minor with knowledge and intent to commit a sexual offense — on the grounds that the person he was communicating with was not actually a minor, but a federal agent.
The court today ruled there was still enough evidence to convict him of the crime, Imperial County Deputy District Attorney Kevin Cayton confirmed.
Korwin was also convicted on one count of attempting to commit a lewd act upon a child and meeting with a minor for lewd purposes.
A former green energy and technology teacher at Desert Mirage High, he was arrested after he was met by agents when he drove from Riverside County to El Centro in Imperial County in June 2017 in an attempt to meet with the underage girl he believed he had been talking to.
Digital devices were searched, revealing one image of child pornography, along with several images of child erotica, according to Imperial County prosecutors at the time.
Though Korwin was teaching at Desert Mirage High at the time of his arrest, there is no indication that he committed any crimes at the Thermal school.
