Novel Defense Fails
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court imposed a five-year consent suspension of an attorney who had been reported by a member of his law firm for possible possession of child pornography.
A search by police revealed 320 images and led to a guilty plea.
ABC Action News reported on the arrest
A Montgomery County [Pennsylvania] attorney has been arrested for allegedly possessing hundreds of images of child pornography.
George Bock Ditter of Perkiomenville was arraigned Tuesday on charges of sexual abuse of children and criminal use of a communication facility.
Ditter is accused of using a work computer at his law office in North Wales to view pictures of underage children performing sex acts.
Investigators said they found 24,000 image searches on the computer.
The Montgomery County district attorney said Ditter told a colleague he was doing research for a “sexually graphic novel” he was writing.
North Penn Life had more
The law firm partner told police that in mid- to late-September, he had walked over to the office copier machine to retrieve a fax when he discovered two printed images sitting in the copier tray, one of which showed two naked males engaged in a sexual act, according to the affidavit. The partner said that he observed Ditter — who is described in court documents as an employee of the firm; a cached version of the firm’s website from Oct. 6 listed Ditter as an attorney with the firm — retrieve the images from the copier, the affidavit states.
The next day, Ditter approached the partner to explain the images, claiming that he had been doing research for a sexually graphic novel that he was writing, according to court documents. During the meeting, the partner advised Ditter that possession and printing of such materials was a violation of company policy, but, the affidavit states, Ditter allegedly asked the partner, “Let’s just keep this between us. Please don’t tell anyone about this.”
On Oct. 3, the affidavit indicates, a computer virus was detected on the law firm’s computer server, and a tech company was brought in to identify and remove the virus. During that work, two sexually explicit images — both of lone teenaged males — were found on a shared drive, and while those files were not the cause of the virus, the tech company was allegedly able to determine that Ditter had placed them on the shared drive, according to the affidavit.
Further investigation of Ditter’s work computer by the tech company allegedly first uncovered numerous image searches using terms including “really young teen boys” and other much more sexually explicit search terms, then located several images on the computer’s temporary cache folder that were later determined by detectives to be child pornography, court documents state.
Law enforcement officials obtained and executed a search warrant for Ditter’s work computer and other electronic storage devices used by Ditter at the firm on Oct. 6, seizing 11 items and finding numerous images of child pornography on Ditter’s computer during an initial review, according to the affidavit.
(Mike Frisch)