Ex-volunteer youth worker pleads guilty in child porn case

PITTSBURGH – A former Western Pennsylvania church youth worker pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography, including some depicting adults performing sex acts with infants.
Andrew Patterson, 46, of Monroeville, must return for sentencing May 25 before a U.S. district judge when he’ll face up to 20 years in prison.
Patterson was a volunteer with the Living Waters Family Worship Center in Irwin and resigned his position there hours before his arrest in October 2014.
He was first charged by state authorities after an undercover detective allegedly traced porn he found on the Internet to Patterson’s computer.
Federal prosecutors took over the case and indicted Patterson two months later.
He’ll remain jailed until his sentencing. The federal public defender assigned to him has a policy of not commenting to the media.
Patterson, his wife and daughter began attending Living Waters, the small nondenominational church about 25 miles east of Pittsburgh, in summer 2014. By September, Patterson persuaded the husband-wife pastors of the church to let him start a youth ministry, which met weekly about five times before his arrest, according to Sylvia Tryon, one of the pastors.
Patterson was never alone with church children, and other adults were present for the youth gatherings, Tryon said. Patterson worked with children aged 12 to 18 at the church.
According to the indictment, an undercover detective in another county first traced pornography to Patterson’s computer in June 2014. Patterson had more than 1,000 images and videos when he was arrested.
Some of the pornography depicted children under 12 – which raised the maximum sentence he faced from 10 to 20 years in prison – including at least one image of an adult male and an infant, according to court records.