A Ferguson Township man was arrested on Thursday after state investigators allegedly found he was in possession of dozens of images depicting child sexual abuse.
The Child Predator Section of the Attorney General’s Office began investigating in February a report forwarded from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that an image depicting a prepubescent female with her genitals exposed was “viewed and/or uploaded” in Pennsylvania using Microsoft Bing.
The IP address linked to the report was registered to Samuel J. Jones, 75, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Special agents from the Attorney General’s Office executed a search warrant on Jones’ rural western Ferguson Township home on Thursday morning and found at least 97 images of child sexual abuse on his laptop and USB thumb drives, according to the affidavit.
Jones allegedly told the agents that he used website chatrooms to obtain pornography and that sometimes users would send him images depicting minors. He said that he would look at them and then try to delete them, and that he had files on the thumb drives “from when he used to travel,” according to the affidavit.
An agent wrote that Jones said he did not look at the images for excitement, but “more so out of curiosity.”
Jones was charged with 97 felony counts of child sexual abuse materials and one felony count of criminal use of a communication facility.
He was arraigned on Thursday afternoon by District Judge Casey McClain and was unable to post $25,000 bail.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 28.
