School bus driver arrested for Internet porn

BY Joseph Picard
SPARTA — A bus driver for the Sparta School District has been arrested for child pornography.
The state Attorney General’s office announced Wednesday that Eugene Triston, 55, of Stanhope, was arrested on Feb. 10 and charged with the distribution of 25 or more files of child pornography.
Triston was employed by the Byram Bus Line, which is under contract with the Sparta School District to transport students. A woman answering the phone at the bus company who did not wish to give her name said Triston lost his job on the day he was arrested. Sparta Assistant Superintendent Daniel R. Johnson, in a letter to parents sent out Wednesday, said Triston has not “returned to the district in any capacity once we learned of the allegations.”
Johnson also said that the parents of all children who rode on bus runs made by Triston were informed of the arrest just after it was made. Johnson also emphasized that, according to state law enforcement, none of the charges against Triston involved Sparta School District students.
“The individual in question was not a direct employee of the Sparta School District,” Johnson said in the letter.
According to Acting State Attorney General Robert Lougy, Triston was one of 16 individuals taken in “Operation Safeguard,” a joint sting by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and the federal ICE Homeland Security Investigations that targeted people using an online file-sharing network to download and distribute child pornography, including videos of young children being raped.
Triston “allegedly viewed child pornography on breaks between bus runs, which included driving elementary school children,” the attorney general said in a release.
The offenders, all males, all New Jersey residents, ranged in ages from 17 to 72. Among them was a 5th Grade teacher from Vineland.
All 16 are charged under New Jersey’s 2013 child pornography law, which enhanced the penalties for those who possess, distribute or manufacture child pornography. If convicted of distributing 25 or more computer files of child pornography – which includes simply having that number of files in a shared folder on their computers, available for other users to download – the defendants will face a mandatory minimum state prison sentence of five years without possibility of parole. Any defendant found to have possessed 100 or more files of child pornography on his computer will face a presumptive sentence of three to five years in state prison, authorities said.
Triston made bail, which was set at $50,000.
"He is free on bail, on the condition that he has no contact with children," said Peter Aseltine, spokesman for the Office of Attorney General.
Indictments are pending, authorities said.