Lehighton man faces child porn charges

A Lehighton man has been charged with the possession and distribution of child pornography.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by Daniel Block, a special agent with the Bureau of Criminal Investigations of the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General:

Block received a Cyber Tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and learned that Facebook reported that a video of apparent child pornography was uploaded to Facebook, which Block reviewed.

An Intelligence Analyst from the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General’s intelligence unit conducted a JNET search of Daniel Kleintop, 46, of Main Road.

On Aug. 13, a search warrant for the address was signed by Magisterial District Judge William Kissner of Palmerton.

At 10:45 a.m., Block contacted Kleintop at his employer’s office and informed him of the investigation.

Kleintop agreed to speak with Block and consented to allow agents to access his cellphone.

Kleintop was asked if he had any other devices in his car or in his office. He said that he kept his Apple laptop and iPad in his jeep because he didn’t want his girlfriend to have access to them.

Kleintop said that Facebook had shut down his account a few months ago and that he claimed he was “hacked.”

He then said that Facebook actually had shut him down two or three times for inappropriate chats, which he said included a few sexual chats with other Facebook users, but he “thought they were all adults.”

Kleintop said he would also chat on WhatsApp with other users, and that he never intentionally looked for child pornography, however when he sent various links on WhatsApp, some of them would contain child pornography.

He said he was also on Twitter, Chaturbate and other sites looking for the “live sex” or videos of sexual acts on homemade cameras.

During the on-scene preview of Kleintop’s cellphone, a group chat invite link called “child porn” was discovered, as this link was on his Safari browser history on May 31.

When asked, Kleintop said he has seen child pornography, and that he has seen children as young as 12-14 years of age depicted on videos and images.

On Aug. 14, a search warrant for his Facebook username was signed by Common Pleas Judge Michael Barrasse, and the warrant was then served on Facebook via their law enforcement portal.

On Aug. 21, Facebook responded with the information requested in this search warrant, at which time four videos were discovered in Kleintop’s Facebook account that contained apparent child pornography, and the described video from the original Cyber Tip was one of the videos discovered.

Kleintop faces charges on four counts of sexual abuse of children — possession of child pornography; and one count each of sexual abuse of children — distribution of child pornography, and criminal use of a communication facility.

He is currently incarcerated in the Carbon County Correctional Facility in lieu of $500,000 bail, and is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing Sept. 11 before Kissner.