Police have arrested two more Newtown High School students in their investigation into sexting among NHS students, involving the exchange of sexually explicit images and videos via mobile computer networks.

The two arrests, which police made on Saturday, February 13, bring to 25 the number of NHS students either arrested or referred to a community-based Juvenile Review Board. Overall, police have arrested five students and have made 20 referrals to the review board.

The two students arrested on February 13 were among the pool of offenders that was initially identified by police. All students arrested or referred to the review board are under age 18, and thus police have not disclosed their identities.

Police said that the two students arrested on February 13, along with their parents, had been given the option of participating in the Juvenile Review Board process, but declined.

Because the parents refused to participate in that process, warrants were sought for the youths from Danbury Juvenile Court.

Both youths were arrested on the warrants, booked, and given appearance dates at Danbury Juvenile Court, police said. The youths were released into their parents' custody.

Police charged one juvenile with three counts of possession/transmission of child pornography by a minor. Police charged the other youth with one count of that offense. The violation is a Class A misdemeanor.

Police said that if the youths and their parents had agreed to participate in the review board process and successfully completed it, there would have been no arrests or criminal records for the youths.

School Superintendent Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, said February 15 that he had no comment on the February 13 arrests.

Following the January arrests and student referrals, Dr Erardi had at that time said, in part, that the investigations by school officials and by police revealed unacceptable activity among students. He then termed the outcome of the investigations "a very difficult lesson that has been learned," involving unacceptable behavior.

The three students arrested in January each were charged with one count of obscenity pertaining to minors; obscenity; transmission/possession of child pornography by a minor; and possession of child pornography, police said. Two of those four criminal charges are felonies and two are misdemeanors.

The school system has conducted its own investigation of the case and has disciplined the students who were involved in the sexting activity.

"During the investigation into the circulation of these sexually explicit images and videos, the Newtown police discovered that a number of students were selling these images and videos for a monetary profit," police have said in a statement.

In May 2015, Liam Seabrook, who is the police department's NHS school resource officer, began the investigation based on allegations of student wrongdoing.

"It was discovered that numerous juvenile students [both male and female] created sexually explicit images and videos of themselves, which originally occurred outside of school, but [the matter] was brought to the attention of school administrators," police said. The administrators then alerted police about the situation.

The police investigation involved more than 50 NHS students, including witnesses and students who were later determined not to be involved in the illicit activity, police have said.

The community-based Juvenile Review Board is a diversionary program that allows community leaders to take a tempered response to what would normally be considered criminal activity by juveniles, according to police. Such a review board, in effect, keeps the offender out of the state's criminal justice system. Typically, such review boards impose consequences such a community service.