The former pastor of a Lawrence County church will face a preliminary hearing Thursday on 192 counts of possession of child pornography.
The Rev. Robert D. Schmidtberger, of Rose Point Road in New Castle, is also charged with three counts of distributing child pornography and three counts of criminal use of a communications facility, stemming from his alleged use of the Internet to send e-mails containing child pornography.
The Rev. Schmidtberger, 50, was the pastor of Rose Point Reformed Presbyterian Church in New Castle from November 1994 until his resignation April 22, according to the church's Web site.
State police in Butler began an investigation in May 2005 after being alerted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the Rev. Schmidtberger may have distributed child pornography by e-mail. America Online had notified the center after allegedly discovering pornographic images of children attached to three e-mails sent by Mr. Schmidtberger in March 2005.
America Online routinely searches e-mails sent over its system for child pornography, according to state police.
State police executed a search warrant on the Rev. Schmidtberger's house in June 2005, confiscating a computer, ZIP drives and CD-ROMs.
The Rev. Schmidtberger was arrested Thursday and released on his own recognizance.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
4 comments:
How sad, I guess every demonination faces somewhat of the same problem
Satan is alive and well and he is using pornography and the internet to invade homes of people from every walk of life. People who would never be found in the back streets at porn shops can so easily get sucked into the darkness of internet porn. We must protect our families from it!!
Ironicly, he was my ethics teacher in high school. He is a good man who fell into a sinful path.
He was my Bible teacher for three years... Its hard to believe a man who points out your flaws and teaches you about the Lord can fall into such a horrible sin as this...
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