A National Children’s Museum executive was arrested Tuesday on child pornography charges, accused of sending 80 images depicting sexual acts between minors and adults, federal prosecutors said.
Robert A. Singer, 49, was arrested at his Falls Church home on charges he sent the images to two people whom he believed to be a mother and daughter, but who were, in fact, a New York Police Department detective, according to U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia in New York.
Calls to Singer’s home were unanswered Tuesday evening.
Singer, who went under the screen name “Badboy2at,” used a computer registered to the National Children’s Museum to distribute some illegal images, according to court documents. The museum closed in 2004 but has administrative offices at 955 L’Enfant Place North SW, where officials are trying to raise $130 million to build a new facility along the Potomac River at National Harbor in 2012.
Federal prosecutors said Singer engaged the undercover detective, posing as a 33-year-old woman and her 12-year-old daughter, on an AOL online chat room called “Cuties,” a site known to trade in child pornography. On five occasions, Singer sent the illegal pictures to the officer, including images of acts between minors and adults and images depicting known victims of child exploitation, authorities said.
After obtaining a search warrant, police found that Singer sent about 80 images to other individuals and received about 10 images and a video of child pornography from July to September, prosecutors said.
Singer, chief operating officer and a Children’s Museum employee for four years, was suspended and barred from the property Tuesday, according to a statement posted on the museum’s Web site.
“We are horrified by the charges,” that unsigned statement said. “Anyone who does anything that might endanger the welfare of a child has no place here. Harming children is against everything we stand for as an organization, and as individuals.”
Singer was charged with five counts of distributing child pornography in interstate commerce. He faces a maximum prison term of up to 40 years.
