ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – An Orange County man employed by a middle school has been arrested after investigators said he pushed two young boys to commit sex acts over video chat, according to court records and law enforcement.
In a criminal complaint released on Wednesday, investigators said they learned last month about two children in Maryland who had been the victims of a computer crime.
One of the children had set up a Discord account while staying with his grandparents, and his father later discovered “disturbing messages” between the child and another user, the complaint states.
According to investigators, that user had offered the 8-year-old boy and his younger brother “Robux” — an in-game currency for the popular children’s video game “Roblox” — to perform sex acts for him via computer.
“Multiple messages from the suspect... were observed telling the two young boys to take the computer to a more private spot away from the adults,” the complaint reads.
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Investigators said that on Tuesday, they were eventually able to identify the user as Italo Rafael Brett Bonini, 25, who was living in a home along Santa Clara Drive in Orlando.
Brett Bonini’s booking information stated he was a chorus instructor at Hunter’s Creek Middle School. The school’s principal, Joumana Moukaddam, left a message to student families on Wednesday to share she had been notified of an employee’s arrest that morning, adding the employee would not be returning to school during an investigation by law enforcement and the Orange County School District’s Office of Professional Standards.
Per the complaint, Brett Bonini told detectives during an interview that he’d lived at the home since 2001, though he’d recently deleted his Discord account because he was “disgusted with himself.”
“During the interview but before discussing the details of the allegations or genders of the victims, Brett Bonini stated that he was ‘not even gay’ and that he ‘fell into temptation that I should not have. I’m not a sick individual, I made a mistake,’” the complaint continues.
Detectives explained that Brett Bonini admitted to communicating with children on Discord because they were “easier to talk to,” and he “liked the control aspect of the chat” with the young boy. Brett Bonini also admitted to asking the boy to perform sex acts over video chat, investigators noted.
Now, Brett Bonini faces a charge of enticing a minor using a facility of interstate commerce.
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