A Bordentown City man who is a campus security officer at Rider University, Lawrenceville, has been charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a child, Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina said.
Alan J. Berman, 58, allegedly posed online as a teenage girl in order to convince a teenage boy to send nude photographs and videos of himself through an online video streaming application, the prosecutor’s office said.
Berman, who is a volunteer firefighter, also allegedly engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the boy and also had child pornography in his possession, the prosecutor’s office said.
Berman was arrested at his home on Lucas Drive on Sept. 21 after police executed a search warrant. A cell phone, a tablet and other digital devices were confiscated and will be examined by the High-Tech Crimes Unit in the prosecutor’s office.
The investigation was triggered by a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after an Arkansas woman said her son had been contacted online by a man who was trying to engage him in inappropriate conversations.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office about Berman’s alleged online activities earlier this year. The High-Tech Crimes Unit launched an investigation which led to Berman’s arrest.
The investigation was conducted by the prosecutor’s office with help from the New Jersey State Police Digital Technology Investigations Unit, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the Bordentown City Police Department.
The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office’s High-Tech Crimes Unit is a member of the New Jersey State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the New Jersey State Police Cyber Terrorism Task Force.
Anyone who suspects Berman of inappropriate behavior is asked to call the prosecutor’s office at 609-265-5035 and should ask to speak to a detective in the High-Tech Crimes Unit.
