Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence former Gilman School teacher Christopher Bendann to 35 years in prison for sexually abusing a teenage student and tormenting him into young adulthood.

Calling Bendann, 40, “relentless, callous, and cruel” in a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday, prosecutors said Bendann repeatedly sexually assaulted the teen he was convicted of abusing and harassed him long after the physical torment ended. They also accused Bendann of assaulting another teen who he was not charged with abusing and with grooming other students, some of whom testified against him.

“It is clear that the Defendant is sexually attracted to children, particularly teenaged boys,” prosecutors wrote. “His pervasive and continual abuse of his position of trust, using his teaching position to access and exploit students, is both shocking and horrific.”

A federal jury in August found Bendann guilty of five counts of sexual exploitation of a child, three counts of possession of child pornography and one count of cyberstalking. Sentencing for Bendann is scheduled for Jan. 21.

One of Bendann’s attorneys, Christopher Nieto, declined to comment by phone Tuesday.

According to the prosecutors’ memorandum, Bendann began sexually exploiting the victim in 2017, when the teen was a sophomore at the elite Gilman School in Roland Park.

The Baltimore Sun does not name victims of sexual abuse without their consent.

Bendann initially made the teen run naked in his presence, prosecutors said. Eventually, he was picking the teen up from parties, but requiring him to be naked in his car, and to touch himself while Bendann recorded with his phone.

Bendann tried to delete videos of himself assaulting the teen while he was in the shower, among other locations, but FBI forensic experts found the clips anyway. Prosecutors played explicit footage, some of which showed Bendann, at trial.

The accuser testified Bendann, who was once his 8th-grade advisor, abused him at the homes of other Gilman families at which Bendann was house-sitting.

Two other former Gilman students testified that Bendann subjected them to “naked laps” in exchange for rides and purchasing alcohol.

Prosecutors said Bendann also sexually abused a teen he was not charged with assaulting. They said the victim could not comprehend his abuse, but that memories “flooded back” after news of Bendann’s arrest in 2023.

Bendann initially proclaimed his innocence on the steps of Baltimore County Circuit Court in Towson, where he was first charged.

Prosecutors wrote that Bendann continued to harass the teen he abused by relentlessly messaging him after he left for college, at times threatening to make the abuse public.

“The Defendant’s disturbing conduct shows the worst of human nature,” prosecutors wrote.

The continued torment exacerbated the impact of the abuse on the victim, according to the memorandum. He resorted to excessive drinking to dull the memory of his abuse, along with feelings of guilt and shame. His academic performance suffered, prosecutors said, as he worried his parents would blame themselves and that his friends at college would find out, further isolating him.

The victim’s parents, prosecutors wrote, “blamed themselves for not seeing the true cause of their child’s slow deterioration — Christopher Bendann.”

Prosecutors also said Bendann lacked remorse.

After the jury rendered its verdict, Bendann turned to the victim and his family and mouthed “I forgive you,” according to the memorandum.

“There was no remorse; there was no acceptance of responsibility,” prosecutors wrote. “There was only his continued need to hold power over others, to gaslight Minor Victim and his family.”

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