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Teacher Charged with Child Pornography

Date: September 13, 2004
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: Timofey Saytarly

On the cusp of the school year’s start, shock and disbelief were two of the sentiments expressed by one colleague of Monmouth Regional High School math teacher Cecelia Schneider, who remains in jail on child pornography charges.

Schneider, 50, a 25-year veteran teacher with the Monmouth Regional district, was charged on Aug. 24 with one count of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of endangering the welfare of a child (with the production and distribution of child pornography), and one count of endangering the welfare of a child (with the performance of a sexual act on a juvenile), according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Her bail was set the day of the arrest by Superior Court Judge Wendel Daniels at $50,000, cash only.

“I know this sounds clichéd, but not in a million years would we have thought this person [charged with this crime] would be Ms. Schneider,” said Andrew Teeple, principal of Monmouth Regional and a colleague and friend of Schneider’s for nearly 12 years. “I’m shocked. I can’t believe it. I’m saddened as well. I have done a lot of reminiscing about the last 12 years. … But looking back, nothing could have given me an inkling that she is capable of this.”

Schneider’s arrest, the Prosecutor’s Office said, came after members of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, Computer Crimes Unit, Manchester Township police and Little Egg Harbor police executed a search warrant at 920 Center St., Little Egg Harbor, the teacher’s home.

“The investigation was the result of a nationwide child pornography distribution ring involving law enforcement authorities in Texas and California,” a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office said.

The complaint lodged against Schneider by the prosecutor alleges that sometime between Jan. 1, 2002 and Dec. 31, 2002, an act of “aggravated sexual assault” was committed by Schneider when she allegedly performed “an act of penetration upon” an anonymous child “specifically by performing fellatio” upon a child under 13.

That child, a male, born on Jan. 28, 2000, was then 2 years old, according to police records.

Schneider also stands accused of endangering that same child’s welfare by manufacturing a “photograph which depicted a child engaged in a prohibited sexual act or in the simulation of such a(n) act …,” the records said. Schneider, the charges said, also “engage(d) in sexual conduct which impaired or debauched the morals of (the child), specifically by performing fellatio upon and masturbating” the child.


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