A 52-year-old Cranston man and teacher at Gorton Junior High School in Warwick has been arrested for possession of child pornography.
Thomas L. Hewes, 52, of 64 Verdant Drive, Cranston, was arrested after a State Police investigation after a they got a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Police said a user of the site meetme.com was using a profile and pretending to be a 16-year-old girl who was soliciting sexual images from underage boys.
State Police said that user was Hewes, who was tracked down by police during the course of their investigation.
Police seized two computers, an iPhone, iPad and 24 USB flash drives from Hewes' Verdan Drive house. The flash drives were hidden in a basement drop ceiling, police said.
Hewes was arraigned in Third Division District Court before Judge Fank J. Cenerini and was released on $10,000 personal recognizance.
The judge ordered Hewes to not contact children and not use the Internet.
The investigation is ongoing, police said, and a full forensic examination of the computers seized by police is underway.
So far, no local victims have been identified.
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