Pennsylvania Priest Charged With Posting Child Pornography to Instagram
A priest in Chester County, Pennsylvania, has been charged with posting child pornography to Instagram and also admitted to posing as a teenage girl to engage in an online relationship with a 14-year-old girl.
Rev. Mark Haynes, 55, was caught posting naked images of an underage girl to the social media site, Instagram. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted local detectives that after tracking the account's origins back to an IP address, the pictures were uploaded in April at the SS. Simon and Jude Parish in West Chester.
When Chester County investigators tracked the use of the computer, the email address associated with the account, irishwit2@gmail.com, was found to belong to Haynes.
When police questioned the reverend on Thursday, Haynes said he had received around 100 images of child porn on Instagram and had circulated about half of them to others, according to court documents. He referred to these images as "'lascivious pictures or videos of minors,'" police said.
Haynes also revealed that in 2010, he had posed as a 16-year-old girl on a dating site and began communicating with a 14-year-old girl. Under these false pretenses she had sent him about 10 videos of her masturbating, according to police.
Although Haynes' devices were void of illegal images, he told officials that he was "addicted to viewing the images." Police confiscated Haynes electronics and are still working to identify the 14-year-old girl.
The reverend was charged with dissemination of child pornography, criminal use of a communications facility and possession of child pornography. He was remanded to the Chester County Prison after he did not post $200,000 bail.
"No matter whether you are rich or poor, young or old, clergy or layperson, the possession of child pornography will lead to arrest, shame and jail," the Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said.
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