 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Student charged with porn on Net Pitt-Greensburg sophomore accused of trading it for CDs Wednesday, January 26, 2000 By Ernie Hoffman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg has been charged with possessing child pornography and using it to trade on the Internet for compact discs and other items.
Justin T. Eshleman, 20, of Landisville, Lancaster County, was arrested by Westmoreland County detectives, who said authorities received a tip about the child pornography from Eshleman's roommate.
Eshleman was arraigned Monday before Youngwood District Justice James Falcon on two counts of possessing child pornography and one count of tampering with evidence. He was free on $20,000 bail yesterday.
Detectives said Eshleman is a computer science major who lives in a dormitory, Robertshaw Hall, on the Pitt campus in Hempfield.
They said his roommate, Gagan Singh, found the pornography while using Eshleman's computer with Eshleman's permission and alerted authorities.
Copies of 88 pornographic images involving children were made on Jan. 16 and given to campus security and then to county detectives.
That same day, county detectives were notified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., that the center had received an anonymous complaint about the pornography on Eshleman's computer.
Last Wednesday, Eshleman learned he was under investigation and the campus student government held a hearing to question him about the case.
Detectives said witnesses at the hearing told them Eshleman said he had placed the pornography on his computer over the past two years and used it to trade for items such as compact discs and videotapes on the Internet.
When county detectives served a search warrant and questioned Eshleman on Thursday, they said he admitted having had the child pornography but he had deleted the files the day before they interviewed him.
|
||||||||
