An Altoona man was ordered held for court Wednesday on hundreds of child pornography charges, but more than half of those charges were dismissed.
David Walter Pulcine, 50, of 2114 13th Ave. had been charged by Altoona police with possessing 837 pictures of children police described as in various stages of undress and nude and shown in sexual acts.
Pulcine also was charged with two counts each of aggravated indecent assault of a child, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of a child and corruption of minors. Police said he molested a 6-year-old girl while a 3-year-old girl looked on.
However, after about a 90-minute preliminary hearing, Magisterial District Judge Todd F. Kelly ordered the charges of aggravated indecent assault of a child, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of a child and corruption of minors to court without taking testimony on those charges.
The case began when police officers armed with a search warrant knocked on Pulcine's door. The warrant was issued as part of the investigation into the alleged sexual abuse.
Altoona Detective Sgt. Mary Hogan testified that officers forced their way into Pulcine's home on June 30, 2011, after he failed to answer the door. Once inside, police saw a message on the computer screen asking for a confirmation to "Delete Davey's Account." That folder, police said, contained the child porn pictures.
Altoona Detective Sgt. Scott Koehle, an expert in computer forensics, testified that he had a made a forensic copy of the hard drive of Pulcine's computer and found numerous files containing images of what he described as "prepubescent females in various stages of undress - some naked and some performing sex acts."
After defense attorney Joel Seelye questioned the exact number of charges, Kelly ordered Pulcine held for court on 400 charges of child pornography but dismissed 437 counts.
After a conference with Seelye and Blair County Assistant District Attorney Daniel Kiss, Kelly said it appeared that some of the images were clearly not child pornography.
