Fourth boy charged in Chesco school sexting case

The Tredyffrin/Easttown School District is among the elite of the region, but Chester County officials say it has at least one thing in common with every district in the county - and others across the country: students barely in their teens sexting.

A fourth T/E student has been charged with distributing sexually explicit images, District Attorney Tom Hogan announced Thursday, in a case that continues to roil the district's middle and high schools, which are among the top-ranked in the state academically.

"This is a case about bullying and broken hearts in the cyber age," Hogan said.

He also offered the most expansive details on the case since it became public last week. Hogan said three of the four boys shared sexually explicit photos of a girl that she had initially sent to a boyfriend. The girl was 13 at the time.

When the girl began dating someone else, the former boyfriend shared the images with other boys. Also, an image of a female involved in a sex act was taken off the Internet and altered to look like the victim.

The boys called the victim sexist and degrading names, harassing her online, on social media and in school, Hogan said.

"They did everything they could to make her life a living hell," said Hogan, who mentioned later that he has a 15-year-old daughter of his own.

Three of the boys and the victim in this case now attend Conestoga High. Police began investigating in April, when the students were in middle school.

In a different incident, one of the four boys, who is still in middle school, was charged after he offered to sell an explicit photo of another student.

Charges against the boys include harassment, transmitting obscene material, and illegal use of a communication facility. Their cases will be adjudicated in Juvenile Court.

Officials would not identify the students involved.

In a written statement shared by authorities, the victim encouraged students who are being bullied to ask for help.

"You are stronger than you think," her statement said. She added: "Conestoga is my school. It is a great school and shouldn't be judged because of a few people who did bad things."

Investigators said the incidents reflected a trend both regionally and nationally. Chester County detectives have interviewed children as young as 9 who have posted sexual images of themselves on social media, Detective Joe Walton said.

In Colorado, high schoolers exchanged explicit photos of more than 100 students. Two 14-year-olds in New York were charged this week for allegedly filming a sexual encounter with a female student and distributing the video. Other students were suspended after receiving it.

A teen was charged in Montgomery County in September for posting sexually explicit photos of more than 30 female students at North Penn High School on a file-sharing website.

A Pennsylvania law passed in 2012 made it a summary offense for children to send explicit images of themselves and a misdemeanor if images are of others.

Fifteen percent of 12- to 17-year-olds with cellphones had received sexually suggestive images through texts, according to a 2009 report by the Pew Internet and American Life project.

Marcy Bergin, president of the Fugett Middle School Parent-Teacher Organization in the West Chester Area School District, is a parent of two middle schoolers, a high school student, and a high school graduate.

"We talk a lot about if you wouldn't want me to see it, then nobody else should be seeing it, either," she said.

Bergin recently did a presentation at Fugett Middle School about cyber-bullying. She said the key was to talk to children about these issues frequently and to use cases like the one in Tredyffrin as teachable moments.

"You didn't tell them once to hold your hand to cross the street. . . . It was every time," she said. "And I think this is sort of, they're crossing another street and you've got to keep reminding them over and over again."

New digital training at the two Tredyffrin/Easttown middle schools, Valley Forge and Tredyffrin/Easttown, started Wednesday. The lessons reemphasize inappropriate use of technology, ways to respond to such behavior and practicing legal and ethical behavior when using technology.

Several companies have sprung up across the country to help parents and schools guide children through their use of technology. Lessons from CyberWise, a digital-literacy organization based in California, are in 39 schools in 15 states, including a middle school and an elementary school in York, Pa.

Diana Graber, cofounder of CyberWise, said children see celebrities posting nude or partially nude images of themselves online and think the behavior is acceptable. Many children she talks to do not know they could potentially be charged under child-pornography laws in some states, she said.

"We're sending our kids such mixed messages and not giving them proper education," Graber said. "When you put a cellphone in the hands of a younger child, especially one not thinking very ethically or logically, of course they're going to make mistakes."

Teenagers whose explicit images are shared without their consent should be treated differently than teens who willingly share images of themselves, the Juvenile Law Center and Impact Justice, a criminal-justice research center, said in a joint statement Wednesday in response to recent sexting cases across the country.

"When someone violates another's privacy without permission, it may be an appropriate matter for law enforcement," the statement said. "But law enforcement should NOT be involved with private, intimate communications between individuals, whether those individuals are teens or adults."

In most of the incidents police discovered at Tredyffrin/Easttown, students voluntarily sent images of themselves to others.

Tredyffrin Township police said one district parent routinely checked his son's cellphone, so his son hid images using a cloud-based storage service.

On Thursday, the Chester County district attorney showed some of the tricks children use to hide texts and photos on their phones. Free "vault" mobile apps can look like a calculator, for instance, but they are actually hiding explicit material.

mbond@philly.com

610-313-8207@MichaelleBond

Inquirer staff writer Justine McDaniel contributed to this article.