A California music teacher has been arrested on federal charges after it was discovered he had tainted flutes that were being distributed to music students with his own “bodily fluids”.

John Edward Zeretzke was contracted with several school districts across Southern California to provide music lessons and instrument instructions to local schools.

John Edward Zeretzke, 60, is named in a five-count federal indictment alleging coercing a minor to produce child pornography, attempting to entice a minor to send him sexually explicit images, traveling to the Philippines with intent to engage in sex with minors and twice receiving child pornography over the internet, U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Thom Mrozek said. He’s was scheduled to make his first court appearance Thursday afternoon, though an update was not available.

None of the alleged victims were in Southern California, Mrozek said. “It appears he contacted these individuals over the internet.”

Zeretzke’s former organization, Flutes Around the World, became the subject of a state investigation last year after claims emerged that flutes created and distributed to school children under the program had been contaminated with semen.

That case remains under investigation by the California Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, but no charges have been filed, according to the attorney general’s office.

Under the program, Zeretzke would show children how to make two flutes from PVC pipe: one to keep for themselves, and one to be donated to another child in need, including children in the Philippines, when the organization had volunteers, according to the organization’s website, which has since been pulled offline.

But allegations that the flutes may have been contaminated with bodily fluids prompted schools to quickly drop the program and issue warnings to parents.

One of those school districts was that of this reporter. I was shocked – and deeply confused – to receive an email from our school district last year warning parents that we may be in possession of the contaminated flutes and promising that the teacher was no longer contracted in the district and an investigation was under way.

Just days ago a representative from the Capistrano Unified School District sent parents this email as a follow up.

If convicted, Zeretzke could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Editorial note: He should. There’s no coming back from ejaculating on instruments you then give to children to put in their mouths. There is no rehabilitation from that level of depravity. Perhaps prison justice will pick up where societal justice is forced to leave off.