According to charging documents, Scott Bender, 48, molested a 4-year-old girl on a school bus on Oct. 23.

“He’s not that way. People that know him know he’s not that way. Child molestation in the first-degree? Come on!” Bender’s sister said.

The student told her parents that Bender had pulled up her dress and had her touch his “privates,” charging documents stated.

The girl’s parents contacted Artondale Elementary after learning of the alleged abuse from their daughter.

The school resource officer did a follow-up investigation. Bender was put on leave.

“We started the investigation right away and we worked it hard enough to get enough information to get him arrested as quickly as possible,” Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s office said.

Officers contacted Bender at his home Monday afternoon and arrested him.

Bender initially denied the allegations, but then told investigators that he was buckling the girl into her “Star-Seat” and was down between her legs when the student made a remark about having a rash on her “pee-pee.”

Both Bender’s sister and sister-in-law said they believe it is a misunderstanding and Bender was just securing the girl with a seatbelt. “Why was he expected to hook up a seat belt? It’s like an infant’s seat belt? Why was a bus driver expected to do that?” Bender’s sister-in-law said.

Bender told investigators that he told the student that only boys have “pee-pees” before pulling out his penis through the zipper of his jeans, holding it out and squeezing it in her direction a couple times.

Bender denied touching the student and said that he never had the student touch him.

While speaking to investigators, Bender later changed his story, saying that while he waited for a second child to board the bus he stood in front of the student and showed her his penis and squeezed it a couple times.

Bender has been charged with two counts of first-degree child molestation and will be arraigned Tuesday. He’s being held on $50,000 bail.

Bender was a bus driver in the Peninsula School District for five years.