Schools

Bus Monitor Had Been With District At Least 4 Years

Background checks on Scott Sanford, who was arrested Thursday on child porn charges, had been clean.

The EG man arrested Thursday in a state police sweep targeting 11 men for possessing and distributing child pornography had worked for Ocean State Transit in East Greenwich since 2009. He had been an employee of First Student, the company that had the EG bus contract before that. 

Scott Sanford has been fired, confirmed OST President Tony Murgo Friday. After he was arraigned Thursday, Sanford was released on personal recognizance, with conditions that he have no contact with minors and no access to the internet.

Murgo said Sanford had a BCI check upon employment with OST. BCI stands for Bureau of Criminal Identification; according to Amy Kempe at the state Attorney General's office, a BCI indicates whether or not an individual has a criminal record in the State of Rhode Island. Murgo said he ran a BCI on Sanford after learning about the charges Thursday and it came back clean – i.e. Sanford did not have any criminal charges against him before Thursday's arrest.

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"This is the first time anything like this has happened," said OST's Murgo. "We want to protect children most of all."

Murgo said OST would be re-evaluating its background check policy. At present, background checks are required for all bus drivers and monitors by state statute. National background checks, such as those required for all school employees in the state, are not required by state statute.

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The driver of Bus 2, on which Sanford worked, was also terminated Thursday, but before OST heard of Sanford's arrest, Murgo said. He said the driver's termination "was not at all connected to this case."

John Chace, a parent, went to the Ocean State Transit EG bus yard Friday morning to express his extreme distress, saying Sanford had been his daughter's bus monitor for the previous two years. 

"He creeped me out from Day One," said Chace about Sanford. "My daughter told me he showed her a tattoo he had. He creeped me out from Day One but I figured, hey, these hired him, they know what they're doing. They're not going to hire some weirdo. And my greatest fear came true."

Chace said Sanford had friended him on Facebook. Sanford has a Facebook page for his graphics business, Scott Graphics.

"I'm sending out pictures of my daughter in her cheerleading outfit and he's commenting … Oh my god, this is probably an image on his computer!" said Chace. "It's scary. This is our little community."


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