Plainfield South Custodian Arrested on Child Porn Charges

A Plainfield South High School custodian was arrested by the FBI Friday and charged with the distribution of child pornography.

Anthony Skoien, 47, of Joliet, was taken into custody at his home Friday morning after a federal investigation that began in June, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement released Friday. He was arraigned on one count of felony distribution of child pornography at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago and is being held without bond.

Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 spokesman Tom Hernandez said that there is no indication that the allegations involve district students or staff. Skoien has worked for the district since 2002 and passed all criminal background checks at the time of his hiring, Hernandez said.

Skoien is the second man with ties to the Plainfield school district to be arrested on child porn charges in the last year and a half. Mario Meschino, who was employed as a bus driver by the company that provides the district's transportation service, pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child pornography and in July was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

According to the criminal complaint, Skoien was indentified in June as a possible child porn distributor via the Internet. An FBI agent working undercover began an online relationship with Skoien using a "peer-to-peer file sharing network" and received files containing sexually explicit images of minor children from Skoien, according to the Department of Justice release.

FBI agents used a search warrant Friday to confiscate a desktop computer and external hard drived from Skoien's house, each of which contained child porn images, the release said. It was also revealed that Skoien used file-sharing network software to receive and distribute illegal images, the release said.

If convicted, Skoien could be sentenced to five to 20 years in prison.

Skoien, who worked afternoons, nights and evenings, is being held without bond pending his next court appearance.

Hernandez said Skoien worked at the school as an afternoon, night and overnight custodian. Disciplinary and employment procedures have been started against him and he will not return to his job pending the outcome of his criminal case, he said. Hernandez did not know who Skoien worked for prior to his district employment.

As for Meschino, Hernandez emphasizes that he was never a district employee but he, like Skoien, has passed all required background checks. Meschino was found to have had more than a thousand child pornography images and videos on his computer, prosecutors said. He also had photographs of children playing, some of which had been shot from his home without the permission of the children or their parents, prosecutors said.