Child porn charges dismissed against Smithfield man
Charges of child pornography were dismissed this week against a Smithfield man after a judge found there wasn’t enough evidence to prove he downloaded images on a previously owned computer.
Following a pretrial hearing on Oct. 27 before Fayette County President Judge John F. Wagner Jr., the judge dismissed the two counts of child pornography that were filed against Thomas Guy Slack, 46, in March.
Pennsylvania State Police arrested Slack after his estranged wife told them that her daughter turned on the computer to play a game, but found files stored on the computer containing photographs of naked or partially clothed children.
Police then obtained a search warrant and found two images of girls under the age of 18 with exposed genitals, according to the affidavit.
In his opinion filed on Dec. 6, Wagner wrote that testimony during the pretrial hearing had Slack’s wife, Regina Jo Slack, purchasing the computer from neighbor Nancy Lee Pryce sometime around March 2015, and Pryce had purchased the computer from a former neighbor whom she only knew as “Sandy.”
“When Nancy Lee Pryce bought the computer, she was told it had been refurbished, but she was not told where Sandy bought it,” Wagner wrote in his opinion.
Wagner added that Pryce never actually used the computer and did not connect it to the internet.
Slacks’ daughter turned on the computer for the first time and discovered the images on Sept. 17, 2015, but as far as the daughter knew, the computer had not been “hooked up” for three to six months, even though it had been purchased a year prior.
Regina Slack testified that Thomas Slack was not living at the residence when she bought the computer, but had moved in with her a short time after that and had disconnected the computer until the September incident when the daughter connected the computer and saw the pornographic images.
In the September pretrial motion filed by the Fayette County Public Defender’s office, it was argued that there was nothing showing that Slack downloaded and saved those two photographs, which Wagner agreed with in his opinion.
“There is simply no evidence in the recording tending to prove that (Thomas Slack) placed the possible child pornography on the computer on which it was found,” Wagner wrote. “The computer was owned and presumably used by at least two other adult individuals in unknown locations prior to its purchase by Regina Jo Slack at some unspecified date in 2015.”
Wagner continued to state that even if the commonwealth could establish the images were placed on the computer after Regina Slack purchased it, the commonwealth could not make a sufficient case to show the images were downloaded by Thomas Slack.
Although the charges were dismissed, Slack remains lodged in the Fayette County Prison on the charge of resisting arrest from an incident in August 2015.
In November, he was sentenced to serve 6 to 15 months in prison for that incident.