Pietro Giustino
Introduction
Pietro Victor Giustino, a 40-year-old former Belton High School teacher once named Belton ISD’s Teacher of the Year, was sentenced on October 21, 2026, to 78 months in federal prison for possessing child sexual abuse material — a downfall capped by a separate state case alleging he secretly recorded female students in his own classroom. Giustino pleaded guilty in March 2026 and received his sentence from U.S. District Judge Christopher Wolfe in the Western District of Texas.
Background Information
Giustino worked as a teacher at Belton High School in the Belton Independent School District, where Texas Scorecard reports he had been named Teacher of the Year before his arrest. The FBI investigated the case with assistance from the Belton Police Department and, notably, cooperation from the school district itself. He was arrested in July 2025.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
According to court documents, on September 22, 2024, Giustino sent Bitcoin to a vendor in exchange for child sexual abuse material. On June 4, 2025, the FBI executed a federal search warrant at his Belton residence and discovered devices and media containing thousands of images of child pornography, including depictions of prepubescent minors. He pleaded guilty in March 2026 to one count of possession of visual depictions of sexual activities by minors.
The case expanded after the search: FBI investigators also discovered 13 cellphone videos of female Belton High School students that Giustino had recorded in a classroom without the girls’ knowledge, and he was charged in October 2025 with two state counts of invasive visual recording, according to Texas Scorecard, which published the court record. The federal case was brought under Project Safe Childhood, the Justice Department’s nationwide initiative against child sexual exploitation.
Public Reaction and Consequences
At sentencing, Judge Wolfe imposed 78 months — about six and a half years — followed by five years of supervised release, along with a $5,000 Victims of Trafficking Act assessment and a $10,000 assessment under the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Assessment Act. The sentence drew local coverage pairing the federal case with the student-recording allegations, an intersection that made clear the classroom itself was part of the conduct pattern alleged. The district’s cooperation with the FBI investigation was singled out in the department’s release.
Current Status
Giustino is convicted and sentenced on the federal possession count; the sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Gloff prosecuting. The two state counts of invasive visual recording filed in October 2025 remain the open thread in the public record — the federal sentencing coverage does not describe their disposition. After prison, Giustino faces five years of supervised release.
Impact on Their Career/Life
A Teacher of the Year award is the exact credential a child-exploitation prosecution erases: Giustino’s federal conviction, the student-recording charges, and the registration and supervision consequences that follow prison end any teaching career permanently. For Belton ISD, the case is the rare one where the district’s cooperation with federal investigators is part of the public record — and where the material federal agents seized connected the defendant’s private offenses to his own classroom.