Schuylkill County Man Jailed on Suspected Possession of Thousands of Illicit Images Involving Children

A Schuylkill County man was arrested last week on suspicion that he had thousands of illicit images involving minor children on his mobile phone.

Police in Minersville say they received a call from authorities out of Florida that Brett Smith, 34, was living in the borough, and was wanted on charges in the Sunshine State. On Thursday, Smith’s phone was pinged and police say they zeroed in on his location in the area of the 300 block of Sunbury St.

Smith’s brother identified the suspect. When police asked Smith how many illegal files were contained on his mobile device, he reportedly said, “a lot.” Smith was initially taken into custody on the warrant out of Florida.

A search warrant was then executed on Smith’s mobile phone on Friday. In conjunction with the PA Attorney General’s Office, police discovered thousands of images and videos depicting minor girls between the age of 3-12 in sexual situations with adult men. Police say there were at least 2,000 still images and 300 videos of that nature on Smith’s phone.

In total, 2,092 still images along with 327 video files were found in Smith’s cloud storage folder.

Smith has been charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography. He was arraigned before District Magistrate Judge AJ Serina on Friday evening. Serina set bail at $300,000 and remanded him to Schuylkill County Prison.

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