John R. Castor

A Sheffield man has pled guilty to the possession of in excess of 50 videos of child pornography

John R. Castor, 30, of Sheffield, was charged back in August 2019 by Pennsylvania State Police and pled to two felony offenses — sexual abuse of children and criminal use of a communications facility — before President Judge Maureen Skerda on Thursday.

Castor was before the court on Thursday facing 50 counts of sexual abuse of children but District Attorney Rob Greene moved to consolidate those down to one. Greene told the court that the effect of consolidating those charges is an extra six months automatically added to the standard range of the guidelines which will be used to determine Castor’s sentence.

Information on the Megan’s Law website indicates the offense to which Castor pled will require that he register as a sexual offender for 15 years.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, a CyberTipline Report was received by the PSP Computer Crime Lab in Meadville. That tip led police to “10 explicit child pornography photographs” that, according to a consulting physician, depicted children under the age of 12. An administrative warrant yielded information about the person whose account received the images.

Acting on that information, police executed a search warrant at 7 S. Main St., Sheffield, “to obtain all devices and media type storage devices…”

Among the items located was a cell phone, according to the affidavit. Castor, who was the only person at the address at the time the warrant was served, “identified the phone as his” and “provided the password.”

During a brief conversation with police, after his Miranda rights were given, Castor “made a statement to the effect, ‘You have my phone, you will find the stuff,'” police said.

The phone was taken to the mobile computer crime lab and examined. “Extracted from the phone were hundreds of child pornography still photographs and child pornography videos,” according to the affidavit. “The still photographs and videos were of prepubescent males and females engaged in prohibited sexual acts.”

The affidavit describes one sexually explicit video involving a girl under the age of 13 and one sexually explicit photo involving a “young toddler.”

“Numerous other photographs and videos of the same nature were extracted, though a full extraction of the cell phone is to be completed at the PSP Meadville Computer Crime Lab,” according to the affidavit.