A Needham middle school teacher is facing multiple charges for allegedly distributing and possessing child pornography.

Prosecutors say videos were of young boys

The judge in the case ordered 47-year-old Michael Ciccolella - a teacher at High Rock Middle School - held on $500,000 bail, five times what prosecutors asked for, and ordered him to stay away from children.

"Supervised or unsupervised, no contact with anyone under the age of 18. Do you understand that, sir? Zero," the judge ordered.

Investigators have been zeroing in on Ciccolella since August by following child pornography posted online back to his Ashland home address. They say the victims in the videos are mostly young boys between the ages of 3 and 12.

Prosecutors said they found "at least 168 new videos," and the videos "contain sexually explicit material, including abuse of children. Those videos contain child pornography, or CSAM, bondage and sadism." When they suggested the teacher might have made the videos, he shook his head. However, prosecutors said Ciccolella introduced new videos online that had not been seen on the Internet before - and that they were homemade or had been made on a cell phone.

Defendant allegedly posed as 13-year-old

Prosecutors also allege that Ciccolella posed as a 13-year-old online to talk to kids. Messaging them that his hobbies were soccer and video games and saying, "Sometimes, I do plays and stuff at school."

Ciccolella is a soccer coach and participates in theater groups.

"Mr. Ciccolella... was immediately placed on administrative leave, and his access to Needham Public Schools buildings, grounds, and digital files was removed," Needham Public Schools said in a statement.

"Stay involved in your kids lives. It's OK to monitor them," said Ciccolella 19-year-old son, who was home at the time of his father's arrest. "It wasn't anything too crazy. I can usually keep myself composed. So it wasn't too bad."

Court paperwork reveals that Ciccolella told police he was abused as a child by his soccer coach. His next court date will be March 27.