The former choir director of Ocean Township High School can look forward to spending as many as eight years in prison for generating child pornography on the web, and targeting some of his own students.

Arthur Ernst III
Arthur Ernst III (Office of the New Jersey Attorney General)
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Arthur N. Ernst III, 28, of Cranford, pleaded guilty today in Union County to a second-degree charge of manufacturing child pornography and third-degree counts of impairing or debauching the morals of a child under age 16 and promoting obscene material to a person under age 18, according to information from the office of acting New Jersey Attorney General John J. Hoffman.

Ernst was fired from his music-teaching job at the school after his arrest on April 21, 2011. His sentencing is scheduled for August 28 of this year.

As part of his plea deal, prosecutors are recommending up to eight years, three without parole eligibility; registration as a sex offender under Megan's Law; lifetime parole supervision; surrender of his teaching certificate; and a permanent ban on public employment.

Ernst confessed to presenting himself as a teenage boy online in late 2010 and early 2011, carrying on sexually-explicit chats with three girls in the choir, all under age 16, and trying to induce them to expose their private parts on webcams or send photos or videos of themselves in the nude to him.

Investigators said that Ernst sent photos and videos of naked young men to the girls, attempting to convince them that the images were of him, encouraging them to expose themselves. He targeted them with AIM and Skype screen names and contact information to which he had access as a teacher, authorities said, adding that the students never acceded to him.

Ernst also admitted inducing a 12-year-old girl in Colorado, in August 2010, to transmit an iPhone video to him in which she disrobed and displayed her breasts and genital region. He responded with pornographic images and links to porn web sites. The exchange came to the attention of the Parker Police Department in Colorado, and ultimately to New Jersey State Police.

Examination of two laptops seized the day of Ernst's arrest yielded an array of salacious images and dozens of sexually explicit exchanges with other minors, also under the ruse of a teenaged boy or girl, and often resorting to harassment of girls in pursuit of more lewd content, authorities said.

"We count on teachers to be guardians of our students, but Ernst turned that expectation on its head, using the anonymity of the Internet to sexually stalk girls he taught in the school choir, as well as numerous other underage girls," Hoffman said in a prepared statement. "This type of predatory behavior against children must be met with the harshest punishment."

"Arthur Ernst betrayed his community and his profession when he chose to use the Internet to deceive and exploit children for his own illicit, carnal behavior," said Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. "This unfortunate situation is a reminder for parents to closely monitor how their children use the Internet."

Anyone who suspects morally-degrading interaction between adults and children on the Internet, or who suspects exploitation or sexual abuse of children, can reach the state Interet Crimes Against Children Task Force via its tip line, 888-648-6007.

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