Dunbar man waives child porn charges
A Dunbar man waived 15 felony child pornography charges to court at a preliminary hearing held before Fayette County Magisterial District Judge Michael Metros on Tuesday.
Arthur Wayne Daugherty, 46, will stand trial on six charges each of child pornography, disseminating photo/film of child sex acts, and one count each of criminal use of a communication facility and disseminating explicit sexual material.
Daugherty is accused of uploading sexually explicit images to Twitter on four occasions between February 2015 and January 2016, using a handle containing the words “lil girl lover,” according to state police.
Daugherty, represented by attorney Jack Connor, had been lodged in the Fayette County Prison since his arrest on Feb. 15 in lieu of $250,000 bond.
Metros reduced the bond to unsecured, and Daugherty was released Tuesday with GPS electronic monitoring, and under the condition that he have no contact with females under the age of 18.
Additionally, Assistant District Attorney Brent Peck said Daugherty will have no access to the internet while awaiting trial.
“We’re going to know where he is at all times,” said Peck. The prosecution is also recommending counseling for Daugherty, he added.
Cpl. John Roche with the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigation executed a search warrant at Daugherty’s home prior to his arrest, and Daugherty allegedly confessed to using the Twitter account connected to the images of child pornography, police said.
The investigation began when Twitter allegedly detected the files and recorded the Internet protocol address from which the files originated, according to police.
The information was then reported the information to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s cyber tip line, and subsequently to state police.