President of New Jersey School Board Arrested on Child Porn Charges

The president of the Dunellen Board of Education in New Jersey has been arrested for allegedly sharing child pornography videos online, including one showing a young girl bound with rope in sexually explicit conduct with a dog. 

Investigators executing a search warrant at the Dunellen home of 67-year-old Philip Heiney Tuesday seized more than 100 pieces of computer equipment, including laptops, hard drives, thumb drivers and other media storage devices, authorities said. Electronics taken from the home had images and videos of child pornography, a preliminary review of the equipment showed. 

Heiney's arrest stems from an investigation by the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. A detective in the digital investigations unit was looking into peer-to-peer file sharing on a network popular with alleged child porn offenders and identified a computer IP address offering content for download. 

The detective downloaded two videos featuring child pornography from the shared folder at the computer address, and that address was traced to Heiney, prosecutors say. Another video allegedly made available by Heiney was downloaded by a sheriff's office in Nevada, officials said. The video downloaded by the office in Nevada involved a blindfolded, bound girl and a dog. 

"It’s appalling that a man who leads his local school board and holds himself out as being concerned about young students would allegedly participate in the depraved sexual exploitation of innocent children by viewing and distributing child pornography online,” New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino said in a statement. "Anyone who would commit such crimes belongs in prison, not in our schools." 

Heieney was charged with second-degree distribution of child pornography and third-degree possession of child pornography. He could not be reached for comment, according to NJ.com. Information on an attorney wasn't available.

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