BATH (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- A school bus driver entrusted with the safety of students in Bath is accused of taking lewd pictures of his passengers and spreading them across the internet.
Although charged with violation of privacy, police said 50-year-old Timothy McGowan of Bath was not arrested.
The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security last week alerted Maine State Police to a tip pointing to a Maine bus driver as the source of pictures on a foreign website featuring school-age students. The investigation was further narrowed to the Bath area through the use of email traces and subpoeas, at which point the Bath Police Dept. joined the case.
The photographs were taken from an angle to look up the skirts of bus passengers. With the help of staff from the Bath area school district, investigators identified six girls from the pictures spanning the elementary, middle and high schools. School leaders notified parents on Thursday, a day after police served McGowan with a criminal summons.
Through a a search of electric devices belonging to McGowan, police said they uncovered pictures that matched the images on the foreign website. Police said McGowan took the pictures while taking students to and from school and special events. Those pictures have since been taken offline, and police declined to reveal the address of the website where they appeared.
McGowan is not longer driving students. The Bath Bus Service where he was employed placed him on leave. Before hiring him, police said the company performed all the proper background checks and found no previous criminal convictions.
McGowan is scheduled to appear in West Bath District Court on July 17.
