Help! California. Teacher Accidentally Showed Porn While Sharing Screen On Zoom During Online Class.

Location: California. A friend of mine, an online teacher, teaches multiple students from all over the world and country.

They don’t belong in a district, they’re contract work for a website. The computer was their personal computer.

They admitted that they were watching porn way before work, but then forgot to close the tab and didn’t realize that it was still open in a separate window from the class slides. It wasn’t until they were going through their windows in the middle of class that they realized it was still up. It was only shown for about 3-5 seconds; however once my friend realized what they had done, they closed it immediately. They felt immense dread and shame, they’ve been remorseful ever since. My friend hid the video recording afterwards to prevent students and parents from seeing it again.

My friend has already reached out to their boss, who in turn understood that it was an accident after watching the recorded footage. It is now being reviewed by the online school’s safety team and hasn’t heard anything since. Their boss also confirmed that they were going to tell the parents as well. That was the last thing they’ve heard from their boss about the situation. My friend has since stepped down and resigned from teaching, and is now living in fear, remorse, and anxiety.

I’m asking this because I want to know if my friend will be okay. Their biggest fear at the moment is being labeled as a sexual offender and facing jail time. Since his boss reviewed the footage and confirmed that he saw that it was an accident, I’m wondering if there’s any hope for a situation like this.

Putting my personal feelings in, my friend has nieces and nephews and is a big family person. They have worked with children for the last three years without any incident, and have consistently received positive reviews on their teaching. They would never knowingly put any minors in this kind of situation, and would never intentionally entangle themselves in anything that would suggest so.

They’ve been really worried that they have completely ruined their life over this mistake, and have been having really dark thoughts. I’ve been trying to do my best to help keep them calm and to hope for the best, but their overwhelming anxiety and fear has been difficult to overcome.

What kind of legal advice or steps should they take?

Thank you for your time!