Summit Hill man faces child porn charges

A Summit Hill man faces dozens of child pornography charges after the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office found that he had been in possession of hundreds of photos and videos since 2015.

Michael V. Perez, 24, of East Hazard Street, was charged by the state with 40 counts of child pornography, one count of criminal use of a communication facility and three counts of disseminating photos or video of child sex acts. All charges are felonies.

According to the affidavit, officials received a tip on Aug. 27, 2018, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Dropbox Inc. had reported several suggestive images and videos that appeared to be child pornography involving both boys and girls as young as 8 had been uploaded to an account, later discovered to be registered to Perez.

In addition, three videos of the same nature had also been uploaded and were available to the public.

On Oct. 16, following a request for customer information from Dropbox, the state learned that the account had been used since December 2015.

On Jan. 11, law enforcement conducted surveillance of Perez’s home, and on Jan. 30, a search warrant was issued.

Law enforcement from the Attorney General’s office, Homeland Security Investigations and Pennsylvania State Police executed the warrant and identified Perez as the sole user for the account in question.

Perez agreed to speak with officers and admitted using the Dropbox account in 2015, but hadn’t used it in a while.

He also said he uses a social media application and internet groups to trade pictures of girls in bikinis.

When asked why he doesn’t use Dropbox anymore, Perez said that it had been disabled by Dropbox because someone shared questionable pictures to his account.

Perez then admitted that he has viewed child pornography, beginning around 2014 or 2015, for his own pleasure and that the children in the photos or videos were as young has 11.

Agents then examined Perez’s cellphone and found files that showed the Dropbox account had been used on his phone.

A search of Perez’s Dropbox account also found hundreds of images and videos of children as young as 5 engaging in sexual acts.

Perez was arrested and arraigned on Thursday before District Judge Casimir Kosciolek of Lansford. He is currently incarcerated at the Carbon County Correctional Facility after bail was set at $250,000.

He faces a preliminary hearing before Kosciolek on March 27.