MAYS LANDING — Somers Point’s former director of Emergency Management Roger B. Tees, 74, pleaded guilty Feb. 28 to distribution of child sexual abuse material.
The state will recommend a four-year prison term at the time of sentencing. Upon his release from state prison, Tees will be placed on parole supervision for life and be required to register as an offender under Megan’s Law.
The investigation began when Tees used his Yahoo account to save child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to his cloud account, authorities stated in a news release. Upon scanning the content, Yahoo reported the upload of suspected CSAM to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
That ultimately prompted an investigation by the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office High-Tech Crimes Unit, which revealed that Tees was sharing CSAM on Telegram, a popular instant-message and file-sharing application, and saving the material to his Yahoo account, the release stated.
Following a search of his home, the High-Tech Crimes Unit, assisted by Homeland Security Investigations-Atlantic City and the Somers Point Police Department, uncovered numerous videos and photographs depicting children engaged in prohibited sexual acts on Tees’ digital devices.
The investigation did not reveal any evidence that Tees engaged in prohibited conduct while working in an official capacity as the director of Emergency Management for Somers Point, nor while working in any role as a public servant.
Sentencing is tentatively scheduled for May 9.
