NJ student teacher among two child porn arrests, prosecutor says

Another two men have been arrested for child pornography, one of them a student teacher in Monmouth County, Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina announced on Friday.

Matthew Natale, 22, of the Marlton section of Evesham, was charged on Tuesday with three counts of endangering the welfare of a child (two second degree, one third degree) and one count of tampering with evidence.

Authorities found that Natale was using email to trade images and videos of pre-pubescent boys, Coffina said.

Middletown Township Public School District ended his student teaching assignment at Middletown High School South after becoming aware of the charges and Natale can have no unsupervised contact with children, among conditions of his release from custody after a first court appearance.

He also cannot use a smartphone, or access social media or the internet in general, unless he is attending virtual college classes or looking for a new job, according to the prosecutor.

Robert Chestnut, 68, of Shamong, was charged on Wednesday with third degree endangering the welfare of a child, after investigators found he was searching for and viewing images of pre-pubescent females on his laptop and other digital devices, according to Coffina.

Chestnut was released following a first appearance in Superior Court.

In both cases, the prosecutor's office was alerted to online activities by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Natale and Chestnut were rounded up as part of Burlington County's ongoing Operation Safe Quarantine, which has netted roughly 30 people since last May.