By Thursday night, a Toms River lawyer who sits in the legal machinery of Jackson Township was in the Ocean County Jail. Robert Charles Shea, Jr., 42, is charged with possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material. Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer announced the case.
The charges
Booking records list two counts under New Jersey’s child endangerment statute, 2C:24-4B(5), both under one case number and abbreviated as “END WELFARE CHILD SELL PHOTO.” Prosecutors say the images were shared on peer-to-peer networks. Police took Shea into custody at Berkeley Township Police Headquarters. He is held pending a detention hearing, which county officials say is set for Tuesday.
How investigators got to his door
It started with a cyber-tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about someone sending and receiving abuse images on Snapchat. The tip went to the New Jersey State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Detectives from the prosecutor’s High Tech Crime Squad and Berkeley Township police then traced IP addresses to two places: Shea’s home in Berkeley Township and the Toms River office building housing R.C. Shea & Associates, a firm owned by his father.
Detectives executed a court-authorized warrant at the house on October 22. A first forensic look at several of his phones turned up numerous images, prosecutors said. A search of the office the same day produced one more phone, with the Snapchat app on it and an image Investigators say was used to distribute material. Billhimer said Shea was identified as the person who accessed and shared it.
Jackson reacts
Jackson’s mayor, Jennifer Kuhn, moved fast. In a statement posted to Facebook, she said she was horrified and that “if true, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” She said she is ending the township’s relationship with the firm “effective immediately” and asked the Planning Board to remove Shea as its attorney. “On a personal level, I’ve known Mr. Shea and his family for years and today’s allegations are a complete and utter shock to me,” she said.
Township records show Shea as public defender, Planning Board attorney and Zoning Board conflict attorney, and the 2026 reorganization documents name him among special legal counsel appointments. His firm biography says he was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 2017 after studying at Villanova University and Cooley Law School.
When someone answered the phone at his law firm on Friday, the request for comment was declined. Billhimer thanked the High Tech Crime Squad, Berkeley Township police, the state task force and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for their work on the case.
Sources
- BREAKING NEWS: Toms River Attorney, Political Figure Arrested for Distributing Lewd Images of Children
- Update: Toms River Attorney Downloaded Pics at Home and at Work Using Snapchat
- Snapchat tip leads to arrest of N.J. town attorney for child sex abuse images. ‘I’m horrified,’ mayor says.
Photo: Matthew Ansley / Unsplash (Unsplash License)
