Bridgeport, Connecticut, teacher’s sentencing for child pornogrphy put on hold because of his severe stroke

Thomas Bavedas, 39, who admitted to possessing more than 67,000 images of child pornography and was free on bond while awaiting a prison sentence that would have been imposed yesterday, suffered a severe stroke on January 30.

Bavedas sentence has now been put on hold and his lawyer Edmund Q. Collier said, “There is nothing else we can do.  The Department of Corrections is not suited to care for somebody in his condition and they are not going to put him in jail for 10 years in a hospital ward.  He is not ambulatory.  He cannot really speak.  He can’t even leave the hospital.”

The Bridgeport, Connecticut, schoolteacher was accused of hiding a video camera in a closet at Waltersville School classroom to videotaped girls as they changed into costumes in preparation for a Halloween pageant.

According to his lawyer, the aneurysm and stroke was probably caused by the reality of doing 10 to 18 years in jail for his crime.

Bavedas, who was also accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, is in Yale New Haven Hospital.