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Fairchance man allegedly shared child porn on Pinterest, Tumblr

By Olivia Goudy ogoudy@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read

A Fairchance man who previously spent time in prison for rape of a child was arrested and charged with 16 counts of possession of child pornography.

While George Arthur Powell, 54, reportedly told officials he gets an “undescribed satisfaction from looking at child pornography,” he also told an agent with the state attorney general’s office that he sometimes downloads the images so he can turn them over to police.

Powell, a lifetime registrant under Megan’s law because of the prior rape conviction, was arraigned late Tuesday on charges that he had posted pornographic pictures of children on the social media sites Pinterest and Tumblr while staying at his mother’s home on West Church Street in Fairchance earlier this year.

After his arrest, Powell reportedly told Agent Lorraine A. Fascetti that he has a “curiosity with child pornography,” according to an affidavit filed with Magisterial District Judge Mike Defino Jr.

In the 11-page affidavit, Fascetti wrote that administrators of Pinterest and Tumblr flagged and reported the content that Powell allegedly posted, leading to an investigation in April.

Powell allegedly uploaded two images to Tumblr containing naked girls between the ages of 13 and 15, according to the affidavit. He also allegedly uploaded one of the same images to Pinterest.

After obtaining search warrants to their Internet provider and identifying who was at the home where the IP address originated, officials from the attorney general’s office executed a search warrant Tuesday morning at the home of Powell’s mother.

Agents seized a laptop, cell phone and a hard drive — some of which were previewed and found to contain child pornography, according to the affidavit. A search of Powell’s laptop uncovered eight pictures and two videos containing child pornography while his phone revealed another 31 videos. His external hard drive allegedly contained numerous pornographic videos with at least three of them containing child pornography, according to the affidavit.

When asked about his usage of Tumblr and Pinterest, Powell allegedly told agents that he “used to repost and pin pornography content on these sites frequently but believed everything was legal age, 18 or older,” according to court papers.

The affidavit also states that Powell’s phone had media folders marked “PTCH,” which Powell allegedly found out meant “pre-teen hard core” and continued to download the content after he learned of its meaning.

When asked about the images in question, Powell allegedly stated that the youngest girl looked to be about 4 years old, though he “prefers girls between 14 and 16 years of age.”

Powell allegedly told the agents that he knew those types of images were illegal, but if they weren’t being forced in the sexual acts, then he didn’t see anything wrong with them, according to court papers. Powell also allegedly told officials that he thought children as young as 12 years old could consent to a sexual relationship.

In 1998, Powell was charged with sex crimes including rape of a person less than 13, aggravated indecent assault and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. He pleaded guilty to all of the charges lodged against him and was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in state prison in 1999.

The offense required him to have a lifetime registration under the Tier III classification in Megan’s Law. According to the state police site that maintains a list of offenders, Powell first registered under Megan’s Law in September 2008. His last check-in with police was July 26, and he listed as a transient with no permanent address.

The site also shows that he is unemployed and does not have a vehicle.

He was also charged in the 1983 shooting death of Dalton Smithburger — a case that is still in the Fayette County Court system. While Powell was acquitted in Smithburger’s death, Scott Wayne Blystone was convicted of robbing the 24-year-old and shooting him six times. A jury who heard the case three decades ago sentenced Blystone to death.

In past years, however, appellate courts granted Blystone a new sentencing hearing. A recent court ruling paved the way for that hearing to proceed.

Powell, 23 at the time that Smithburger was killed, testified during his 1984 trial that he knew Blystone was planning to harm Smithburger when he picked him up. Smithburger was hitchhiking in Hopwood.

Powell also told jurors at that trial that he told Blystone “Do what you want to do. … I want nothing to do with it.” Prosecutors at the time contended that Powell knew Blystone intended to rob and kill Smithburger, and had sought a first-degree murder conviction that would have imprisoned Powell for life.

In addition to the 16 counts of possession of child pornography, Powell also faces one count each of criminal use of a communications facility and disseminating photos or videos of child sex acts. He is in the Fayette County Prison, unable to post the $75,000 bond that Defino set.

He will face a preliminary hearing at a later date.

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