14-03-2025
Elk County man charged after laptop with child pornography found in home
ELK COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) — A St. Mary's man is facing felony charges after police said he was found with child pornography files.
Jason Orner, 46, was charged after police were notified Feb. 1 that a BitTorrent file-sharing network containing one file of child pornography was flagged during an internet investigation. Investigators were able to download the content from the laptop using its IP address, which was public, where they allegedly found three total files containing 993 pieces of media.
When viewing the content found in the files, investigators noted that there was at least one piece that contained the depiction of children under the age of 18 years old engaged in sexual acts and/or poses. Police noted that the file was believed to be child pornography/sexual abuse materials and in violation of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code.
Investigators then downloaded another file, which allegedly contained 664 total pieces of media. The file was labeled explicitly, involving the words 'little girl' and 'fetish,' according to the criminal complaint. Police noted that the second file also appeared to contain child porn/sex abuse materials as well.
A third set of files, containing 603 total pieces of media, was then retrieved from the publicly available server. Within the third set, police found numerous video and photo files that contained depictions of child pornography and/or sex abuse, according to the complaint.
Investigators then located the IP address associated with the files to St. Marys, where they were able to trace it to Orner, according to the complaint. On March 13, police and agents from the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General executed a search warrant on Orner's residence, where a forensic examiner examined a computer found.
During the examination, investigators found numerous files of apparent child pornography media, according to the complaint. When asked, Orner allegedly told police that he did own a computer, which could be found in his bedroom, and that he used a torrent file sharing program but was unable to remember the last time he had.
Police also noted finding two phones in Orner's bedroom, along with the aforementioned laptop that was searched by the forensic examiner. According to the examiner, the last time Orner's laptop was accessed was March 8, with media file links that had been removed from the hard drive and were no longer able to be viewed.
Upon further investigation, the examiner was able to locate the file sharing program that Orner had allegedly used for the files and found references to the files investigators had originally downloaded from the public server before they had been deleted, according to the complaint.
The forensic examiner was also able to find 10 files of apparent child pornography materials that had been saved to the laptop, with all 10 depicting children under the age of 18 engaging in sexual acts, according to the affidavit.
Orner is now facing felony charges of child sexual abuse materials, criminal use of a communication facility and dissemination of photos/film of child sex acts/sexual abuse materials. He is now in the Elk County Prison after being unable to post his $175,000 bail.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 25.
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