Feb 23, 2016 2 min read

WAYNESBURG – A 25-year-old Franklin Township man was sentenced Tuesday to five years’ probation for possessing child porn in 2013.

Samuel Chip Barclay, of 785 N. Woodland Ave., was sentenced by Senior Judge Hiram Carpenter on two counts of possession of child pornography and one charge of criminal use of a communication facility.

“This is a young man who was admittedly addicted to porn,” Carpenter said after the sentencing. “He was already in counseling before I saw him.”

Barclay pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography in July and prosecutors dropped two charges of disseminating child porn.

State police from the computer crime task force said they found child pornography on a file-sharing network and tracked the Internet protocol address to a Comcast customer. A court order was served and Comcast identified the IP address user as Barclay.

Troopers searched Barclay’s residence in December 2013 and seized two computers and a flash drive in Barclay’s bedroom. They found more than 300 suspected images of child pornography, one of which was a 10-year-old girl, and several videos of nude children engaging in sexual activity.

According to police documents, when Barclay arrived at the residence, he was questioned about images on his computer and he said he did not know what ages the persons in the images were.

Police said Barclay told them he was not sure if there were any images of children under the age of 10, and he usually just stumbles across them while browsing online.

For the first six months of his probation, Barclay will be on house arrest with electronic monitoring, for which he will pay, along with court costs and a $500 fine. He will also continue mental health counseling.