Penn State Student Accused of Downloading, Sharing Child Pornography

Police on Monday arrested a former Penn State University Park student accused of downloading and disseminating child pornography.

Riley D. Davis, 22, used the university’s network last fall to download a 27-minute video depicting pubescent and prepubescent children nude and engaged in sexual acts, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed by Penn State police. He also allegedly shared the video with others through BitTorrent file-sharing software.

Middletown Township police in Bucks County discovered the video being shared from an IP address registered to Penn State and contacted university police on Nov. 13. The IP address was assigned to Davis and a search warrant was served on his University Park residence hall room, according to the affidavit.

Davis initially denied downloading or possessing any child pornography, police wrote. He later admitted, however, to downloading the video, which he described as a Belgian sexual education video, and said he knew that doing so was wrong, according to the affidavit.

He allegedly police he acquired the video using BitTorrent out of “morbid curiosity,” and forgot to turn off sharing after downloading it, making it available for dissemination to others.

Davis is not enrolled at Penn State for the spring semester, university spokesperson Wyatt DuBois wrote in an email.

“The Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response will review the allegations of misconduct and determine appropriate next steps,” DuBois wrote. “The university may take student conduct action in addition to, and separate from, the charges filed by police.”

Davis is charged with felony counts of depicting on a computer child sex acts and disseminating film of child sex acts.

He was arraigned by District Judge Don Hahn, who set unsecured bail at $50,000.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 31.

A defense attorney listed for Davis did not respond to a request for comment on Monday afternoon.