Police: Rockland middle school custodian exchanged 'sexually explicit' messages with teen

ROCKLAND – A middle school custodian who also works for the Boston Red Sox has been charged with child enticement, East Bridgewater police said.

Peter Tolan, 58, of Rockland, a custodian at Rogers Middle School, was charged with enticement of a child under 16 this week.

The Red Sox on Tuesday confirmed that Tolan was also an employee and he has been suspended. According to Tolan's Facebook profile page, he works as a ticket taker for the Red Sox.

"When we learned of the allegations against Peter Tolan, involving events unrelated to his Red Sox employment, he was suspended without pay from his position. We will have no further comment going forward," the team said in a statement.

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Police said a detective received a message though a social media account that she had set up identifying herself as 15-year-old girl. The detective began to engage with the person, later identified as Tolan, and again identified herself as a 15-year-old girl, police said.

“Messages of a sexually explicit nature were then allegedly sent by Tolan. A search of the phone number used to send the messages was traced to Tolan,” East Bridgewater police said.

Tolan agreed to meet the girl at an address in East Bridgewater “for the purposes of a sexual encounter,” police said. When Tolan arrived at the location, he was arrested, police said.

Police said a search of his cellphone showed messages that matched those sent to the detective earlier in the day.

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Tolan was arraigned Tuesday and released on $500 bail. He was ordered not to have contact with minors, not to use social media, not to leave the state, to stay away from Rockland Public Schools and not to apply for a job in a school.

He is scheduled to return to court Nov. 30.

Rockland Public Schools placed Tolan on leave.

"(Tolan) has been placed on administrative leave after the Rockland Public Schools was notified of the employee's arrest in another community," Superintendent Alan Cron said in a statement. "The employee will remain out on leave pending the outcome of the criminal case and a review by the Rockland Public Schools."

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Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com. 

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Rockland custodian Peter Tolan charged with child enticement