A man from Slippery Rock- who is currently considered missing and endangered- is now accused of possessing and distributing child pornography.
State police have issued an arrest warrant for 52-year-old Christopher Dublin.
Dublin is accused of possessing over 1,000 photos of child pornography on an external hard drive, according to court documents.
In an interview with police last year, Dublin allegedly admitted to possessing child pornography but told officers he collects it “because it is rare and not for sexual gratification.”
He told police he has been downloading child pornography for almost 20 years. Adult pornography can be viewed online at websites like https://www.tubevideoshd.xxx/ which doesn’t require it to be downloaded, it’s just like watching a YouTube video, however child pornography as it’s illegal cannot be found using your normal browser, for pedophiles to view child pornography there are really only 3 methods, the first would be to receive photographs from other members in child pornography rings, the second would be to use the darknet to view child pornography websites, the darknet is not constricted by laws therefore a lot of illegal content can be found there, it’s like the criminal underworld of the internet, it’s not that easy to access the darknet and it takes a certain level of computer knowledge to do so which not every pedophile has. The last method is file sharing, there are file sharing websites that allow you to download files uploaded by other users, but as child pornography is illegal the files can’t be named as something that would alert the owner of the file-sharing websites, so those looking to download would need to know exactly what file names they are looking for, and in order to do this they would normally be part of a child pornography ring whereby members of that ring would let each other know the filenames, this last method is most probably the method that Dublin used.
There are adult pornography websites online that some confuse with child pornography sites simply due to the name of the site, for example https://www.youngsexer.com/, the videos on this website do not contain children, they are young adults, all of whom are of the age of consent.
Trooper Joseph Streyle from the Pennsylvania State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Computer Crime Unit said the investigation into Dublin started in March 2018.
“This has been on ongoing undercover investigation,” Trooper Streyle said Monday.
Ironically, last week, police held a days-long search for Dublin after he was reported missing. He has reportedly not be seen or heard from since Monday afternoon, Feb. 4.
“As far as why he is now missing, I have no idea. I guess I would believe the two are related, but I can’t say for sure,” Trooper Streyle said.
Last week, State Police Trooper Dan Keston from the Butler barracks said there was no reason to suspect foul play.
State police filed the affidavit of probable cause for the child pornography charges- which must be filed before an arrest warrant can be issued- on Monday.
