Kyle Banner (Photo: Ocean County Jail)
A Brick Township man who is employed as a teacher in the Toms River Regional school district has been charged with multiple counts of endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct after prosecutors say he posted explicit images of himself – taken in a classroom – online and sent similar photos to students.
Kyle Banner, 48, faces three counts of child endangerment in addition to the official misconduct charge. The charges were announced late Tuesday, however Banner has been suspended from his teaching position without pay since April 24.
According to the statement from prosecutors, detectives from the prosecutor’s office and Toms River police determined that students “had viewed the pornographic images by accessing Banner’s public Twitter profile.”
Further investigation revealed that the photographs were taken in his classroom at Toms River Intermediate North, according to prosecutors. During the course of the investigation, detectives also discovered that Banner “sent inappropriate photographs of himself to a student via Snapchat” in October of 2022. Investigators also “recovered numerous images of Banner engaging in sexual conduct with himself in his classroom at Toms River Intermediate North,” the statement said.
Banner surrendered himself to the Toms River Township Police Department on Tuesday. He was processed and transported to the Ocean County Jail, where he is currently lodged pending a detention hearing.
“I would encourage parents to have a conversation with their children if they had this defendant as a teacher,” said Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer.
Anyone with additional information regarding the investigation is asked to contact Detective Graham Borg of the Toms River Township Police Department at 732- 349-0150, or Detective Stephanie Bayha of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office at 732-929-2027, extension 3861.
Billhimer credited Toms River police, as well as the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit, Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office High Tech Crime Unit, Toms River Township Police Department Detective Bureau and Ocean County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit, all of which participated in the investigation.
