25 suspects rounded up in N.J. child porn crackdown

Following the latest crackdown on child pornography in New Jersey, 24 men and one juvenile have been arrested. Ranging in age from 17 to 66, they have been charged with downloading and distributing videos of young children being sexually molested.

Two of the suspects regularly baby-sat children, according to state Attorney General Jeff Chiesa who announced the arrests Wednesday as part of a statewide sweep known as “Operation Ever Vigilant.”

Five of the men had direct contact with young children, he said at the news conference at the State Police Technology Complex in Hamilton, Mercer County.

“The concern is that they had contact with children and the ability to be with children in a trusted atmosphere,” Chiesa said. “In all likelihood, these were parents who, like anybody else would, were trusting somebody to watch and care for their children, and now we know they were engaged in the kind of behavior that is criminal and requires severe punishment.”

Chiesa says authorities will search the computers they seized during the arrests and will continue to monitor Internet file-sharing sites to find other people involved in the child porn network.

“We want anyone who would consider linking themselves to this depraved network of users and sharers of child pornography to know that there are severe penalties for doing so,” he said. “And we want then to know that we are watching them by patrolling the Internet.”