GANT: Area Man Faces Numerous Charges for Allegedly Possessing Child Pornography

DUBOIS, Pa. – A DuBois man is facing numerous charges for allegedly possessing child pornography.

(This article was provided by our news partner GantDaily.com.)

Kazin Matthew Shafer, 21, is charged by state police with a total of 85 felony counts of child pornography, as well as one felony count of criminal use of communication facility after an investigation into images stored onto a Verizon phone.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, police received several tips about the images between May and September, one of which was a video of a prepubescent child having sex with an unknown male.

In all there were 20 videos of indecent contact and four with children involving nudity.

Information from Verizon reportedly traced the phone to a DuBois woman and Internet activity to Shafer, including photos he took of himself and texts by “Kaz”. It became obvious that Shafer was on the woman’s phone plan.

At this stage, police allegedly found an additional 26 videos involving indecent contact and two videos involving child nudity, which were uploaded in February, April, May and June.

A search warrant was served on Shafer’s residence on Oct. 6. On his phone, investigators found more child pornography including the images originally reported, according to the criminal complaint.

In all there were 72 images of child pornography, involving indecent contact and 13 images of child pornography with nudity, according to authorities.

Initially, Shafer denied searching for child pornography, but later admitted to investigators that he was “in a dark place at the time” when he searched for child pornography in the past and there were still files on his phone.

Shafer was arraigned on Thursday with his bail set at $25,000, unsecured. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 9 during centralized court in District Judge David Meholick’s office.