New Jersey state prosecutors allege that Audubon Park Volunteer Fire Chief John Terruso, 44, distributed child pornography using a station computer.
Terruso was arrested June 11, and subsequently charged with distribution and possession of child pornography. He is being held on $150,000 bail.
A preliminary preview found that there were over 1,000 files that could possibly have contained child pornography. Four laptops, two external hard drives, a desktop computer, a tablet, thumb drives, and cell phones were taken as evidence for the investigation.
Acting Attorney General John Jay Hoffman said:
"We charge that Terruso sordidly abused the trust placed in him as fire chief by viewing and sharing child pornography at the fire station. In doing so, he allegedly linked himself to the depraved network of offenders who, by sharing child pornography, perpetually re-victimize the children involved and directly motivate those who sexually exploit and torture children to create these vile materials.”
CBS Philly reports that Terruso used file-sharing software to allow other individuals to remotely download from a "shared folder".
He was caught by a special agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigation department through monitoring such file-sharing software. The monitoring eventually led to Terruso's computer being traced to the firehouse.