CHEYENNE — A former fifth-grade teacher who had faced nearly 30 charges relating to sexual abuse of children was sentenced Wednesday to 27-30 years in prison.
The sentencing comes after he pleaded guilty in April to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and one of third-degree sex abuse of a child in an agreement with prosecutors.
Brian Wrhel, 56, was given three 9-to-10-year sentences to be served consecutively, the Cheyenne Police Department reports.
He was first arrested July 28, 2025, about a week after the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office charged him with 16 felony sex crimes.
While out on bond facing those charges, Wrhel was hit with another 11 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor after a search of his cellphone uncovered more than 4,000 images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to court documents.
His April plea bargain voided a pair of trials that had been set for the former teacher.
What The Girls Said
Wrhel first came onto the radar of the Cheyenne Police Department when someone at a Laramie County School District No. 1 elementary school called the CPD to report sexual abuse of a minor, according to an evidentiary affidavit written by Detective Damon Hall.
The principal told the responding officer that school staff became aware the week prior that a fifth-grade teacher had been allegedly touching students inappropriately in class.
“An internal investigation was conducted prior to law enforcement notification,” wrote Hall, and Wrhel was placed on leave May 16, 2025.
Investigators identified multiple potential victims, all girls, and arranged for them to be interviewed forensically at Safe Harbor.
Some girls in their forensic interviews described their teacher touching their bottoms, breasts, genitalia, torsos, thighs and backs during class, wrote Hall.
Repeatedly, the girls who allegedly suffered this touching also noticed when Wrhel did it to others, the document alleges.
The teacher’s inappropriate touching happened at his desk, which sat in the back of the class, especially when a girl would go to him for help with schoolwork, Hall related from those interviews.
One girl, whom the others identified as most frequently victimized, said her teacher would touch her “private part” under her pants, and it felt “uncomfortable and weird.”
She said the teacher unclipped another girl’s bra, according to the document.
“Small things,” or more minor, inappropriate touching, started around October 2024, but the touching progressed to where the teacher was touching the girl inappropriately every day, two or three times a day, wrote Hall.
Another girl claimed the teacher put his hand up her shirt “three times each week” and down her pants “four times in one week,” wrote Hall.
Thousands Of Images
Wrhel was out on bond when he was re-arrested following a search of his cellphone, home computer, and other electronic devices that uncovered thousands of CSAM, according to another affidavit filed in his case.
A forensic download of one of his cellphones “recovered approximately 2,102 images of CSAM, eight CSAM video clips, and 5,372 internet searches from (a pornographic website),” the affidavit says.
A little less than two weeks later, a search warrant executed at Wrhel’s home — specifically his electronic devices — found 1,196 child sex images on another cellphone and another 1,974 web searches from the same pornographic website, according to the affidavit.
“Many of the images were from picture packages viewed or obtained from the website and were individually titled or labeled with a specific theme name from the website,” the affidavit says.
Examples of the titles include: “Nudist Summer Forest Hike with Youngers;” “Nude Pageant Video;” “Family Shower;” “Naked Camping Bubble Fun;” and “Twister Family Game Night.”
“The CSAM images were of children ranging from approximately 4 to 16 years of age and appeared to originate from Russia and the Czech Republic,” says the affidavit. “The images showed the children, both male and female, completely nude and exhibited the genitals and pubic areas of the children in a lascivious manner.”
Had he been convicted on all 27 of the previous charges, Wrhel faced potential for a prison sentence of up to 395 years.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
