Metro

A city man was taken into custody after a nearly yearlong investigation into his online activity led officers to discover AI-generated child sexual abuse material on his electronic devices.

Joseph Blair Hazlett, 43, was arraigned Thursday by Magisterial District Judge Daniel C. DeAntonio on four felony counts of child pornography, two felony counts of disseminating photos or film of child sex acts and one felony count of criminal use of a communication facility. He remains free on $50,000 unsecured bail.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a complaint from SnapChat on May 21, 2024, that an image of child pornography was uploaded to its platform on Dec. 27, 2023. It was determined the incident occured within Pennsylvania, so the information was sent to the PA Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and made available to the state Attorney General’s Office for investigation on June 11, 2024, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Law enforcement submitted administrative subpoenas and search warrants for the SnapChat account’s subscriber information, the email address used to create the account and the IP address used to upload the image. On July 1, officers were told that the IP address’s account holder and subscriber was Hazlett, who resided along Cricket Club Lane in Altoona, the police report states.

On July 10, 2024, officers received the SnapChat account’s contents and confirmed the existence of three child porn images, two of which were AI generated. Officers noted the account also contained audio files of a male, believed to be Hazlett, describing sexual encounters with purported minors, the report states.

On Thursday, state Attorney General’s Office and Altoona Police officers executed a search warrant on Hazlett’s residence about 6:12 a.m. While the search was underway, Hazlett was interviewed about his online activity. When asked if he ever looked at porn, Hazlett said “who doesn’t,” according to the affidavit.

Hazlett was then asked if he had ever seen child porn, to which he admitted to having seen it before and to looking at it. He told officers he shared an image with an online friend before describing the image included in the initial SnapChat complaint, the report states.

Through the search warrant, agents with the Computer Forensics Unit found an additional AI-generated child sexual abuse image on a storage device belonging to Hazlett, court documents state.

Hazlett is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in front of DeAntonio on June 11.