2nd N.J. trooper charged with child porn possession
Andrea V. Knox allegedly received child porn during text exchanges with Jeffrey Reitz.
A second New Jersey state trooper was arrested Tuesday on charges that she received child pornography from an already-indicted trooper and failed to report the crime to police, the state Attorney General’s Office said.
Andrea V. Knox, 35, of Mount Holly, allegedly received images of naked children at a nudist location during a sexually explicit text conversation in 2018 with Jeffrey Reitz, 48, of Williamstown.
Reitz was indicted in December on two counts of possession of child pornography in a case also involving explicit online exchanges but with a different woman. In that case, the woman proposed that he molest her 5-year-old daughter.
“ANY PICS?” he asked. The woman sent him a picture of the child’s genitals and Reitz allegedly replied: “NICE!”
Prosecutors said Reitz also sent the woman pictures of his genitals.
The 2014 email exchange was discovered during an investigation of the woman, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for permitting a child to engage in pornography.
Investigators found additional images of child porn in Reitz’s iCloud account, prosecutors said. During their examination of that account, investigators allegedly found evidence of his explicit conversations with Knox.
Knox, who is assigned to Troop D Moorestown, was charged with third-degree possession of child porn and second-degree official misconduct. She has been suspended from her job by the New Jersey State Police, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Prosecutors said Knox encouraged Reitz in their conversations by asking for details about sex acts he would like to perform on an underage girl.
In the new case, Reitz also was charged with second-degree distribution of child porn. He has been suspended by the state police since his arrest earlier last year.
Attorneys for Knox and Reitz could not be reached Tuesday night. Stuart J. Alterman, the lawyer representing Reitz, said in April that his client “is not guilty, and we will work through his exoneration and restoration to duty.”