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Man jailed in child porn case

2 min read
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Investigators allegedly found “at least five” files depicting minors “engaged in sexual acts and/or poses” on a phone belonging to a Washington man.

The state attorney general’s office charged Bernard V. Griffin, 50, of Maryland Ave., with five counts of possessing child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication device in a case referred to state prosecutors by agents from Homeland Security Investigations in Pittsburgh.

A state investigator said in an affidavit of probable cause supporting the charges Griffin admitted to federal investigators he’d viewed material depicting sex acts involving children but said “it was for the shock value,” when asked if he got sexual gratification from doing so.

The federal agents first identified Griffin through an investigation that began in September when an investigator downloaded publicly available files allegedly containing child pornography through a peer-to-peer file-sharing service on multiple days from the same device. In response to a summons from the agent, Comcast Communications disclosed the account associated with one of the downloads from that device was in Griffin’s name, investigators said.

Agents first spoke to him Feb. 28, when he consented to agents searching his current phone. Investigators found “no images of child pornography or elecronic contraband on the device.” About a week later, investigators again spoke to Griffin, who consented to a search of an old phone he said no longer worked. Agents allegedly found 13 videos identified as child pornography and three more videos and two images described as child erotica in a file on a memory card in the phone. The investigator from the attorney general’s office said in court papers she’d viewed five of the videos and agreed they were child pornography.

Court records don’t list an attorney for Griffin, who was being held in Washington County jail. District Judge Robert Redlinger set bail at $50,000.

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