What started with three-way text messages with minors from a chatroom website landed a Shelbyville Central School Board member in jail.
On June 16, David Finkel, 64, was arrested on a federal warrant, an FBI spokesperson confirmed. An affidavit for his arrest reveals he was taken into custody for sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child porn.
Court documents reveal he had text correspondence with two minors who were both under the age of 15 and didn’t live in Indiana. That led to a raid of his Shelbyville home, where sexually explicit content of children was found on his devices.
Pretending to be an adult woman named ‘Emma’
According to court documents, in April 2024, the Daviess County Sheriff’s Department in Missouri received a complaint from a mother who found explicit text messages and images in her child’s phone. A search of the device by FBI Missouri agents revealed the two minors were initially texting each other.
One minor asked if they could invite a 27-year-old adult friend named “Emma” to the conversation. After a group chat was made, “Emma,” who was Finkel, said hello and sent a picture of a woman in a bra whose nipples were partially visible.
One minor sent a picture of an erect penis and Finkel texted, “I need that in my mouth.”
They went on to exchange multiple sexual communications in their group chat off and on for five days.
On May 29, 2024, during an interview at the North Central Missouri Children’s Advocacy Center in Trenton, Missouri, one of the minors said she met a 15-year-old boy online who lived in Pennsylvania. She described sending images of her private areas to him before being asked to join a three-way conversation with a woman who wanted nudes.
On September 26, 2024, during an interview at the Children’s Advocacy Center in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, the other minor said he met “Emma” on the chatroom website Y99. He said he believed the woman knew his and the other minor’s ages.
Agents were able to determine that the number texting the minors belonged to Finkel.
FBI starts surveying Finkel’s Shelbyville home
In early May of 2025, agents started a surveillance in the 200 block of West Broadway Street in Shelbyville, Indiana, where Finkel lived. A search warrant was granted and executed at the home on June 3, 2025. Finkel was interviewed during the search and told agents he was chatting for fun, according to court documents.
“What people do in fantasy is different than what people do in real life,” Finkel said in an affidavit for his arrest. He admitted to pretending to be a different gender and age and sending sexually explicit images and videos to other adults.
He denied communicating with minors online.
Agents confiscated multiple devices from Finkel’s residence, and a search of them revealed numerous sexually explicit images and videos of minor children, including infants and toddlers, located in a photo gallery listed in the “hidden folder” of a cell phone.
The Shelbyville Central School Board asked Finkel, who was vice president of the board, to resign on June 10, 2025, following the federal raid, and Finkel, who also served as director of the Strand Theatre in Shelbyville, was scrubbed from their website, and the theater announced the reorganization effective immediately on June 8, 2025.
Jade Jackson is a Public Safety Reporter for the Indianapolis Star. You can email her at Jade.Jackson@IndyStar.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter @IAMJADEJACKSON.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Court docs: School board member pretended to be woman named ‘Emma’ while texting minors
Reporting by Jade Jackson, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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