A BNY Mellon investment services employee, who is also their vice president of computer network security, has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography, as reported by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
The FBI has located thousands of photos on D.A.'s computer in his home in Monroeville. The images are of young girls between the ages of 2 and 10 years old. Some of the photographs were shared on a peer-to-peer network.
D.A., 45, posted a $25,000 bond. His formal arraignment is set of June 6.
David J. DeFazio, D.A.'s attorney, said that his client is cooperating with law enforcement.
D.A., married and the father of two, waived his preliminary hearing.
In October 2012 the FBI opened their investigation. They were acting on a tip they had received that stated someone was using a specific Internet provider address, and that they were sharing documents with file names that could include child pornography.
Verizon Communications was subpoenaed by the FBI for the IP address. By December an agent served a search warrant.
According to the criminal complaint filed in the Allegheny County district attorney's office there were almost 3,000 files found and flagged as child porn or potential porn.
The term "PTHC" was found in several search returns. Additionally, a text file that contained URL links and a file description, similar to files that could contain child porn, were also found.
An inactive file, that had been deleted, contained over 900 images of nude girls.
When he spoke to investigators, D.A. said that he was aware that the acronym PTHC stood for preteen hardcore. D.A. knew this because this was the same type of computer investigative work that he was also tasked to do in his job.
D.A. told the FBI that he didn't "know anything about child pornography", according to the complaint, and he'd never seen the text file.
However, further in the interview D.A. did admit that over the last ten years he had viewed child pornography – downloaded and then deleting afterwards – depicting girls between 2 and 10 years of age.
By way of explanation for his behavior, D.A. offered that he had been a victim of molestation as a child.
However, D.A. strongly denied any instances of actually touching a child, and he maintained that he could have only shared files by accident.
D.A. said that he would seek out counseling and now that he was being investigated, "this (investigation) was a God send to him and his wife" and felt "like a weight being lifted off his shoulders."
DeFazio commented, "I would say based on his cooperation so far, I see a young man who is a victim in his own way from (past) experiences, who just wants to put this behind him. So I don't see any reason why he would stop cooperating."
DeFazio did not tell reporters how D.A. plans to plea.
Ron Gruendl, the spokesman for BNY Mellon, refused to comment on the criminal complaint.
Criminal charges, no matter how serious or daunting, are best handled by an criminal defense attorney. Contact a criminal defense attorney from our directory right away!
