Roaring Spring man faces 180 child porn counts
Grant arraigned after thumb drive with explicit images found
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A Roaring Spring man is facing 90 felony child porn charges after a family member discovered that a thumb drive plugged into his computer allegedly contained explicit material involving minors.
Donald Albert Grant, 70, was arraigned Wednesday by Magisterial District Judge Andrew L. Blattenberger on 90 felony counts of child pornography and 90 misdemeanor counts of design/copy obscene material - depict minor. Unable to post $400,000 bail, he was remanded to the Blair County Prison.
Officers with the Roaring Spring Police Department were alerted to the situation about 5 a.m. June 23, when a woman contacted the station to report her 14-year-old son found a thumb drive containing child pornography at Grant's residence, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
The woman told officers that her son and his friend were using Grant's computer to do homework while at his apartment along the 400 block of Water Street in Roaring Spring. The son said Grant usually didn't allow anyone to use his computer without him present but, at one point when Grant wasn't around, the son and his friend located adult pornography on Grant's computer, police records show.
Due to finding the adult pornography, the pair snuck onto the computer during the early morning hours of June 23 while Grant was sleeping and accessed a thumb drive that was plugged into the computer's USB port. On the drive, the pair saw photos of a child about six to eight years old naked with an adult male, court documents state.
The woman said her son immediately called her about 5 a.m. to tell her what they had found, describing him and his friend as "panic-stricken" and "gagging on the phone." When she went to pick them up, the pair took the thumb drive and gave it to her, police records show. She then looked at the thumb drive to confirm her son's account and reported it to police.
Court documents state that about 3:45 p.m. on June 23 Grant texted the boy asking who had turned his computer on that morning and told him a thumb drive had been stolen from the USB port. In a second message, Grant said he would put the boy's game consoles in the dumpster unless the drive was returned.
Police obtained a search warrant for the drive on June 28 and, on July 1, Roaring Spring officers took the drive to the Blair County District Attorney's Office for review. While there, investigators found the thumb drive contained six folders, four of which contained hundreds of files, police records show.
In one folder, officers reported finding more than 90 photos, images and videos depicting minors in various stages of nudity and engaging in various acts of indecent contact. The drive also contained hundreds of pictures and videos that appeared to be computer generated depicting minors being sexually assaulted by adults as well as several stories involving sex with minors.
Grant is scheduled to appear in front of Magisterial District Judge Blattenberger for a preliminary hearing on July 11.