NJIT Lecturer, Paul King, has been arrested and charged following investigation results disclosing his involvement with distributing images and videos of child pornography.
Following a summer-long operation spanning across multiple counties in New Jersey, the Monmouth County prosecution office has charged King and 13 others for their involvement sharing illegal and explicit images of children across the web.
NJIT students and faculty are shocked upon receiving the news. Kevin Wheat, a third year Mechanical Engineering student had taken Humanities 102 with King in the past. “He was a relatively good professor. He may have expected an excessive amount of drafts for our essays, but he was open to suggestions from students for the structure of the class.”
As seen by his Rate My Professor score – receiving an “Overall Quality” score of 4.3 – King seemed to be adequate in teaching his classes. “On a scale of one to ten, he was a five,” said Evan Martin, third year Electrical Engineering student. “It’s crazy. Ask anyone from class and they would say he was a bit weird, but I definitely wouldn’t have expected it.”
Whether NJIT will release a statement concerning King’s situation is not yet known. However, the online Humanities Department faculty listing no longer displays King’s name or email among the other professors.
Couple this with the fact that Paul King cannot be found as an instructor in the school’s registrar system, the chances of King instructing any courses this Fall semester seem unlikely.
According to the press release from the Monmouth County prosecution office, King has been charged with “one count of second degree Endangering the Welfare of a Child (Distribution of Child Pornography) and one count of third degree Endangering the Welfare of a Child (Possession of Child Pornography).”
Each of the accused have been released on the conditions of not communicating/interacting with anyone under the age of 18 and were supervised to avoid internet usage.
If convicted of each of the charges, the defendant could be sentenced to a decade of imprisonment in New Jersey, and to parole supervision for the rest of their life.
As defendants in the United States of America, King and the other defendants are presumed innocent and cannot be found guilty without evidence being brought forward in a court or trial setting.
There have not been any dates set for a trial, but should there be, King will be represented in court by Daniel Petersen of Red Bank.