Sep 25, 2014 4 min read

CARMICHAELS – A Cumberland Township man is being held on $25,000 straight cash bond after being arrested on charges of allegedly downloading and sharing child pornography over the Internet.

Matthew Wayne McIntire, 30, of 152 Live Easy Road, Carmichaels, was arraigned Wednesday evening before Greene County Magisterial District Judge Lou Dayich on three charges of disseminating photos/film of child sex acts, six charges of child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication facility.

On Sept. 24, agents of the attorney general’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, along with officers from the Cumberland Township Police Department, served a warrant at McIntire’s address. They spoke with McIntire’s parents who said he was at work. When McIntire returned home, he was interviewed by investigators and said he was “willing to answer questions,” agents said. McIntire said he lived in the basement of his parents’ residence where investigators located a desktop computer and flash drive containing child pornography.

McIntire said he was the only person who used the computer. According to the criminal complaint, McIntire admitted searching for, downloading and viewing child pornography through a peer sharing program on the Internet. Agents said McIntire told them this is a “problem” he has been dealing with for a number of years and something he is ashamed of because he knows it is wrong.

According to the complaint, McIntire told investigators he installed a sharing program each time he wants to download child pornography files and then deleted both the sharing program and the files when he is done viewing them. He allegedly told agents this was to prevent him from getting caught and he uses file cleaning software that wipes away traces of the program and the files when he is done. He also admitted placing the files into a shared folder on his computer, allowing them to be accessible to other uses on the peer-to-peer network he used, agents said.

Forensic examiners from the attorney general’s office determined McIntire ran the cleaning software just hours before their arrival at his residence Sept. 24.

McIntire told investigators the flash drive located at his residence belonged to him, but he did not recall saving child pornography to it. However, he allegedly said if the files were on the device, it was because he put them there.

On Aug. 27, agents used a peer-to-peer file sharing network to directly connect to a computer at an IP address later determined to be located at McIntire’s residence to download a file containing “known child pornography,” according to a criminal complaint. Agents allegedly connected with McIntire’s computer again Aug. 28 and Sept. 1, when they downloaded additional files containing child pornography.

Such files depicted videos of children ranging in age from approximately 6 to 10 years old engaged in various sexual acts with adults and also exposing themselves in explicit poses.

Investigators recognized several of the files shared by McIntire from identifiers attached to them. Among the files allegedly downloaded by McIntire were several with a descriptor indicating they were from a former child pornography distributor from Ukraine. The distributor used the front of being a fashion modeling agency to recruit more than 1,500 children from 8 to 16 years old to exploit. The Ukranian government and Interpol raided the business in 2004 and shut it down.

It is noted in the criminal complaint against McIntire that his IP address was seen on the file sharing network with “numerous files of investigative interest,” dating to October 2011. In 2012, only 19 arrests were made in Pennsylvania for disseminating and possessing child pornography.

In 2013, the number of arrests jumped to 114 after Attorney General Kathleen Kane requested and received funding from the legislature to create a state-of-the-art facility with agents and attorneys devoted exclusively to identifying, arresting and prosecuting child predators.

Agents in the child predator section of the attorney general’s office are on track this year to easily surpass that amount.

McIntire was the second child pornography arrest made in Greene County this month. Samuel Chip Barclay, 23, of 785 N. Woodland Ave., Waynesburg, was arraigned before Dayich last week accused of using a peer-to-peer software program to download and share child pornography from his residence.

A preliminary hearing for McIntire is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Oct. 2 before Dayich.

Suspected child predators can be reported to the Attorney General’s Child Predator Section by calling the Child Predator Hotline at 1-800-385-1044. Anonymous tips can also be sent directly from a cellphone by texting PAKIDS + YOUR TIP to 847411, or through an online complaint form.