Yardley School Bus Driver, Little League Ump Gets 14 Years For Child Porn

Meet Thomas Silber.

The United States Attorney in Philadelphia has announced that Thomas Silber of Randolph Drive in Yardley, Pennsylvania has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for 10 counts of receiving child pornography. The 51-year-old, who previously worked as a school bus driver, Little League umpire and kids’ wrestling referee, pleaded guilty to all counts last December.

Over a three year period beginning in 2007, Silber ordered and received ten child pornography DVDs from a company in Canada, but he didn’t stop there. He was apparently so enthralled with one of the children in the child porn that he reached out to the producer of the video to set up a meeting with the child, who lived in Ukraine. Silber traveled to that country repeatedly to have sex with the minor.

When authorities served a search warrant upon Silber in 2013, they asked him if he knew why they were there, and he told them it was because of “bad movies,” according to the criminal complaint filed in the case. They found nearly 100 pornographic videos depicting children, and Silber was originally charged with 100 counts of possession of child pornography, four counts of distribution of child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication facility.

According to the complaint, Silber told investigators that he was attracted to little boys. He confessed to having anal and oral sex with boys age thirteen or fourteen in Ukraine.

Silber’s arrest was part of an international sting that eventually yielded over 300 arrests around the world. The sting also implicated Ryan Loskam, then the Chief of Staff of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander. Loskam committed suicide rather than face a trial.

As for the Canadian company, Azov Films, Canadian police raided their facility. Prosecutors say that the company had been the subject of over 20 complaints to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel handed down the sentence, which could have been as long as 33-3/4 years. Silber was also fined $5,000, and he’ll face five years of supervised probation upon release from prison. He will also be required to register as a sex offender.