Petersburg Police Chief Kelly Swihart expects the ongoing, federal investigation of Tye Leif Petersen will be long, complex and time consuming. Petersen was arrested and charged with receipt, possession and distribution of child pornography this week. Petersen resigned from his job as head of maintenance for Petersburg Schools just before he was taken into custody.

While it’s an FBI case, Swihart says the agency will involve Petersburg police if it finds images that may have been taken locally.

“Right now all the evidence is being analyzed by the FBI. As they analyze and finish with portions of the evidence, if there are any images they suspect were of local kids, they’re going to send the images to us for review. We’ll then have a local officer review the images and try to determine and identify if local kids were victimized. If, in any event, we find images of local kids, we will contact parents individually and go from there,” says Swihart.

At this point in the case, Swihart says local police have not seen any illegal images of local children. He encourages anyone with questions, concerns or information about the case to contact the department in Petersburg at 772-3838.