Richland man accused of having child porn faces 52 felony counts

A Richland man was charged with 52 felony counts after agents from the state Attorney General’s office said they found child pornography on a computer drive when they raided his home.

William R. Blair, 71, of the 700 block of Parkview Drive was charged Oct. 6 with 52 counts of sexual abuse of children for possessing and distributing child pornography and a count of criminal use of a communications facility.

Blair was being detained in the Allegheny County Jail after bail was denied at his arraignment. He faces a preliminary hearing before District Judge William Wagner on Nov. 9, according to court records.

An agent conducting a June 12 online search for computer users who were downloading or distributing suspected child pornography began investigating Blair after learning that the images and videos were being distributed on a file-sharing network, according to a criminal complaint.

Investigators were able to download a number of the files and get a subpoena to track them to Blair through his internet service provider, the complaint said.

Agents and officers from the Northern Regional Police Department raided Blair’s home Oct. 6 and confiscated an external computer drive that had 211 files, the complaint said. Of the 50 files viewed by investigators, all were child porn, they said.

When questioned, Blair initially told the agents that he accidentally downloaded the material while trying to use a file-sharing program for computer-aided design work, telling them that “you don’t always know what you’re downloading,” the complaint said.

When agents told Blair that they were able to track whether he searched for child porn, he said he downloaded the files because he was “investigating it … trying to figure it out and that he was not actually interested in it,” according to the complaint.

Blair declined to answer any more questions and asked for a lawyer after agents told him that possession of child pornography was legally limited to law enforcement officers investigating a suspected crime or medical personnel providing treatment or doing research, the complaint said.

Blair did not have a lawyer listed in court records.