A 43-year-old school bus driver for Huntley Community School District 158 is being held at the McHenry County Jail after investigators say they traced an attempted upload of child sexual abuse materials to his phone number, then found more on devices seized from his home. Jon Roth faces 10 counts of possessing child sexual abuse materials involving a victim under 13 years old.
The case began when the Huntley Police Department received information from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force about a phone number in Huntley that had attempted to upload potential child sexual abuse materials to cloud-based online storage, according to CBS News. That task force operates through the Illinois Attorney General's Office and relies on automated CyberTips forwarded by cloud storage providers through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a mechanism that flagged the upload in this case, per Hoodline's prior reporting on how the system detects suspected files through hash-matching technology.
Police traced the phone number to Roth, and investigators with the Illinois Attorney General's Office then executed a search warrant at his home, seizing several electronic devices, the station's report states. Roth agreed to come in for questioning before investigators analyzed the devices and moved to arrest him on the 10 felony counts.
District Says No Sign Students Were Involved
Huntley Community School District 158 Superintendent Jessica Lombard confirmed in a letter to the community that Roth was immediately removed from all duties and placed on leave. District officials said they have no reason to believe the materials found on Roth's devices involve students, and that a bus aide assigned to Roth's route had reported no prior concerning conduct, per the same account. Lombard wrote that student safety is the district's highest priority and that the district will support law enforcement's investigation.
District 158 serves roughly 8,280 students across nine schools on three campuses, with about 1,400 certified and non-certified staff spanning McHenry and Kane counties, according to Huntley Community School District 158. The district's footprint covers Huntley along with western portions of Lake in the Hills and Algonquin, putting Roth's former route within a wide suburban service area.
No Bail Under Illinois Law
Roth was taken to the McHenry County Jail to await a detention hearing rather than being assigned a cash bond, because Illinois eliminated cash bail statewide under the Pretrial Fairness Act in September 2023. Under that law, prosecutors must prove at a formal hearing that a felony defendant poses a specific threat to public safety before a judge will order continued detention, according to Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research, which has tracked Illinois as the first state to replace monetary bail with a safety-risk framework. Court records show Roth is due to appear in court Tuesday.
McHenry County judges have ordered pre-trial detention without bail in other recent child exploitation cases, including that of 41-year-old Austin Rogers following forensic evidence analysis, as Hoodline reported on detention orders earlier this month. Illinois statute 720 ILCS 5/11-20.1(c-5) classifies possession of child sexual abuse materials depicting a victim under 13 as a Class 2 felony, carrying three to seven years in prison per count and fines up to $25,000, according to Combs Waterkotte.
Background Checks and Licensing Rules for Bus Drivers
Illinois law requires school bus drivers to clear fingerprint-based Illinois State Police and FBI background checks under Section 6-106.1 of the Illinois Vehicle Code, and state administrative rules mandate a lifetime permit disqualification upon conviction for felony CSAM or child exploitation offenses, according to the Illinois General Assembly. It remains unclear how long Roth had worked for the district or the status of his most recent background screening.
Cases involving school transportation staff facing CSAM charges have surfaced elsewhere in recent years. In September 2024, a Pittsburgh school bus driver and former police chaplain was charged after digital evidence linked him to explicit materials, prompting his immediate termination and a district safety review, Hoodline previously reported. Huntley police have asked anyone with relevant information to contact the department directly, and the department is also accepting anonymous tips through a separate tip line. Roth faces pending charges and is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise in court.
