Dec 19, 2014 4 min read

WAYNESBURG – A Cumberland Township man pleaded guilty in Greene County court Dec. 9 to charges he downloaded and shared child pornography over the Internet.

Matthew Wayne McIntire, 30, of 152 Live Easy Road, Carmichaels was arrested Sept. 24 after agents of the attorney general’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, along with officers from Cumberland Township Police Department, served a warrant at his 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 parent’s 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 was 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 installs a sharing program each time he downloads child pornography and then deletes both the sharing program and files. He allegedly told agents this was to prevent getting caught and he uses file cleaning software that wipes away traces of the program and files. He also admitted placing files into a shared folder on his computer, allowing them to be accessible to other users on a peer-to-peer network he uses, agents said.

Forensic examiners from the AG’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. He allegedly said if files were on the device, it was because he put them there.

On Aug. 27, agents utilized a peer-to-peer file sharing network to directly connect to a computer at an IP address later determined to be 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 years old 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. This distributor used the front of being a fashion modeling agency to recruit more than 1,500 children from ages 8 to 16 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 back 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.

McIntire will be sentenced on 9 counts of possessing child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication facility following an assessment by the Sex Offender Registration Notification Act board to determine if he is a sexually violent predator.

Regardless of the board’s findings, McIntire will be required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law.

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.