ICYMI: Students Allegedly Had Pornographic Images Of Middle School Classmates: Cops

Three juveniles have been arrested in a massive bust of a pornographic and nude image ring in the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District, Tredyffrin Township police announced Tuesday.

The suspects are accused of creating, storing, and sharing images of children between the ages of 11 and 15, that were also students at Valley Forge Middle School and Tredyffrin-Easttown Middle School, police said.

Suspects viewed and shared the images while in school.

Police said that the suspects also took images from the Internet and distributed them around the school, telling students that the individuals in the images were their classmates.

The Tredyffrin Easttown School District responded to the incident with a prepared statement:

The T/E School District has been cooperating with a police investigation related to alleged misconduct by middle school students. We take these matters very seriously and follow up with procedures that promote safety for all students. The incident may also carry school-based discipline. As such, the District cannot comment on specific student discipline matters, as we must do all we can to preserve the privacy rights of all students.

The District has cooperated fully with law enforcement agencies throughout this investigation and will continue to do so. We join with the police and the entire community to emphasize responsible use of technology and to affirm the rights of all individuals to live and thrive in an environment free from harassment. This message is central to our mission and our daily work with students.

In one particularly disturbing incident in Tredyffrin-Easttown Middle School, the suspects said that a girl in their school was the person in one of the pornographic images, and the resulting harassment led to a fight.

“The Tredyffrin Township Police Department has been diligently working in partnership with parents and Tredyffrin Easttown School District Administration and District Staff to ensure the safety of our children,” Superintendent of Police Anthony Giaimo said in a statement. “Incidents such at these are greatly concerning, especially due to its impact on young victims and their families.“

Police said that “the majority” of parents assisted in the investigation. One of the juvenile suspects used a cloud-based storage system to store and retrieve the images without detection by his parents.

Many of the nude images of students that were gathered and distributed by the suspects were “selfies” taken in the victim’s home, oftentimes with the location services setting on their phones activated, police said.

This meant that when the suspects shared the images, child predators would be able to find the location of the homes of the victims using Meta data store in the photos.

The investigation began in April.

The precise charges that will be leveled against the suspects will depend on their age, the age of their victims, and the age of the receivers of the images, according to police.

Additional juveniles are likely to be charged in the near future, police said, and the investigation is ongoing.