Former Pr. George's School Bus Driver Sentenced for Child Porn

A former Prince George's County Public Schools bus driver has been sentenced to 55 years in prison for creation and possession of child pornography.

Scott Smallwood, 29, of Upper Marlboro, has been held since his arrest in May 2010. Smallwood used his cell phone to video the sexual abuse of one child and kept documents on more than 400 children, according to records.

“A vigilant citizen reported the discovery of child pornography, and remarkable detective work by police and federal agents resulted in the rescue of an abused child,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.

On March 15, 2010, Smallwood left a microSD card on the counter of a 7-Eleven convenience store located in Clinton, court records stated.

A man called the Prince George’s County Police that same day and reported he found a microSD card from the same store. That man saw 10 to 15 videos on the SD card. Some of the images were of a suspect engaging in sexually explicit acts with a 7-year-old boy.

Two days later the man provided the card to law enforcement. Federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations identified the suspect who left the SD card in the 7-Eleven as Smallwood and after viewing the videos on the card also identified Smallwood as the man in the sexually explicit videos. At that time, Smallwood was employed by the Prince George's County Public Schools as a bus driver.

Nearly a week later, police and the county's social services department interviewed the boy in the videos. Smallwood was arrested on May 21, 2010.

Investigators said Smallwood admitted he had engaged in inappropriate acts with the boy and had invited him over for sleepovers, where he traded candy for sexual contact. He had taken the microSD card out of his cell phone to destroy it, but lost it, he told police.

In court statements Wednesday, Smallwood's history of working with children was documented -- including driving buses for Montgomery County summer camps, his church's youth program and he even worked directly with area pre-schools, elementary schools and daycare cented.

Investigators found 37 videos on his cell phone with 30 different children. Police also found personal information on over 400 children in Smallwood's home, where he kept journals and charts that detailed the type of underwear the child wore and description of their body parts. They also recovered hundreds of pages of graphic stories Smallwood penned, which describe the sexual exploitation of children, including those that are physically and mentally handicapped.

Police identified the names of 75 children listed in Smallwood's documentation as real children somehow related to his past work.

“Child predators targeting our most vulnerable members of society are a serious matter and even more disturbing when it involves a school bus driver,” said Special Agent in Charge William Winter of ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Baltimore.

“HSI is committed to apprehending individuals who sexually exploit our children and deprive them of their innocence. We will continue working with federal, state and local agencies to investigate such reprehensible actions," Winter added.

Federal investigators worked with Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide effort to combat the sexual exploitation and abuse of children. The program was launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“This case demonstrates the value Project Safe Childhood brings by joining local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and making it a priority to identify unknown abused children and prosecute pedophiles who abuse them," Rosenstein said.

Prince George's County Public Schools Spokesman Briant Coleman said Thursday that the schools take cases like this seriously.

“This was an unfortunate incident," Coleman said, adding that the PGCPS  cooperated with authorities throughout the investigation.

“We reviewed our policy related to background checks and are now more stringent," he added.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit their website.    Details about Maryland’s program are available on the DOJ's website.