Morris County Prosecutor Robert Carroll and Chief of Detectives Robert McNally announce that Andrew Ryan Hendershot, 32, of Rockaway Borough, has been charged in connection with multiple online communications allegedly made with undercover agents posing as minor children.
The investigation began in February 2025 based on a referral from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office (Minnesota) to the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office. Hendershot is alleged to have engaged in sexually explicit conversations via Snapchat with what he believed to be a 14-year-old female child, but which was an undercover PCSO agent. The investigation would reveal Hendershot to be a Rockaway Borough, Morris County resident. Once the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office took over the investigation, the defendant began engaging in sexual text conversations with undercover law enforcement officers from the Morris County Prosecutor’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force posing as a 13-year-old female child and an 11-year-old female child. Hendershot also allegedly sent the 13-year-old persona explicit videos of himself. Hendershot asked and agreed to meet with the 13-year-old persona at a coffee shop in Morris County on a certain date.
As a result of the investigation, the defendant was arrested on February 28, 2025 and charged with second degree Attempted Sexual Assault; second degree Attempted Luring; two counts of third degree Attempted Endangering the Welfare of a Child – Sexual Conduct; third degree Endangering the Welfare of a Child – Possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM); third degree Obscenity; and fourth degree Attempted Criminal Sexual Conduct.
Pursuant to the Criminal Justice Reform Act, Hendershot has been detained in the Morris County Correctional Facility pending a future detention hearing.
The arrest is a result of coordination among a number of law enforcement agencies, including the Polk County Sheriff’s Office (Minnesota), the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office, the Rockaway Borough Police Department, the Morris County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit, and the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office Sex Crimes Unit and Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
A criminal complaint is merely an accusation. Despite these accusations, the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
