Lansdowne Man Pleads Guilty to Child Porn

A Lansdowne man pleaded guilty on Sept. 28. to federal charges of distributing child pornography and could face up to 20 years in prison when sentenced in January.

Frank Robert Tucker, Jr., 50, of the 700 block of Fifth Avenue, admitted using a public peer-to-peer computer network to share videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Tucker was caught by as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat what the group calls a growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, on Dec. 28, 2009, a Maryland State Police investigator accessed a peer-to-peer network and found that Tucker had 89 video files available for download, most of which had names consistent with child pornography.

The investigator downloaded five videos, three of which depicted minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

Maryland State Police obtained a search warrant, and on April 14, 2010, police searched Tucker’s residence and found more than 600 images of child pornography on a computer and an external hard drive, including depictions of sadistic conduct and violence. The external hard drive contained at least 43 videos of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, according to officials.

Tucker faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years in
prison and a maximum of 20 years in prison followed by up to lifetime
of supervised release.

As part of his plea agreement, Tucker must also register as a sex
offender.

Tucker is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 13 in U.S. District Court.