Former teacher’s aide Thomas Gottaas accused fake persona to abuse kids online

WARNING: Distressing content

A former teacher’s aide, who admitted to abusing a dozen children, carefully orchestrated an online persona in order to obtain child abuse material, a court has been told.

Thomas Gottaas, 19, admitted to a string of child abuse charges relating to 12 victims, none of whom can be identified due to their age. None of the victims were his students.

Five of his victims were aged between 11 and 16 at the time of the abuse, and at least two of them were known to Gottaas.

A further seven children that Gottaas abused police have been unable to identify, court documents seen by NewsWire revealed.

Then 18, Gottaas worked as a teacher’s aide throughout the period of offending in 2024.

Two years later, and Gottaas on Tuesday appeared before the Campbelltown District Court for a sentence hearing.

The prosecution told the court the offences involved manipulation and were orchestrated by Gottaas, including “adopting a persona” on Snapchat, that he then used to obtain child abuse material.

Gottaas understood what young boys do online, the prosecution submitted, and the money they seek.

The prosecution also noted that we are “in an environment now” where those who are most vulnerable to these offenders are teenagers.

“Because they are the ones using their phone unsupervised … they are the ones exploring going through puberty … They are the ones that are vulnerable to this activity,” she said.

The court was also told Gottaas has been diagnosed with high functioning autism spectrum disorder, and has faced “significant mental health issues”, and loneliness.

“But many people in society have high functioning autism and do not engage in these sexually deviant interests,” the prosecution said.

Meanwhile, his lawyer James Moore said his client has complied with his strict bail, hasn’t gone “anywhere near a phone”, has complied with his treatment, and is still young.

“He’s now got insight,” he said.

“He’s never engaged with anything like this before … it’s not too late for him to rehabilitate.

“He does have good prospects in my submission.”

Among harrowing details of Gottaas’ offending that were outlined in court documents, it was revealed Gottaas had tricked an 11-year-old boy into thinking he was helping him, as the young boy tried to navigate requests for explicit content from a Snapchat account purporting to be a girl.

In reality, Gottaas was using the Snapchat account to pressure the boy to send him naked videos and images of himself and then using his own number to encourage the boy to comply with the “girl’s” requests.

Among other abusive acts, Gottaas had tried to trick children into sending him explicit content using an encrypted chat platform designed for people under the age of 24.

Gottaas had set his age to 16 and would ask children “Want to make $$$”.

Many of the other allegations in the court documents are too disturbing for publication.

He could face a minimum penalty of five years’ imprisonment for an offence relating to the 11-year-old boy and a maximum of between 15 and 20 years in jail for some of the other offences.

Gottaas will return to court for sentencing on September 4.