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A long-time Meadville minister was arraigned Tuesday on 31 felony charges related to alleged possession and dissemination of child pornography.
Timothy Solomon, who resides in the 300 block of Allegheny Street, was released after the arraignment on $20,000 unsecured bond with bail conditions that prohibit him from having any direct unsupervised contact with people under 18.
Solomon, 68, described himself as “a recently retired minister” at the arraignment before Magisterial District Judge Samuel Pendolino and declined to comment on the charges afterward. Solomon’s attorney, M. Dan Mason, also declined to comment.
Solomon until recently served as pastor at Presbyterian Church of the Redeemer on Conneaut Lake Road and Emmanuel United Church of Christ on Park Avenue.
The Rev. Anita Bernhardt, general presbyter and official spokesperson for Lake Erie Presbytery, was one of three people in the audience at the hearing and said the church had a process in place to respond to such situations.
“This is obviously very damaging to a minister’s reputation,” she said as Solomon waited to complete required paperwork following the arraignment, “but we have a process that really works.”
Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation filed charges against Solomon after receiving a report from Synchronoss Technologies Inc. that images of child pornography had been uploaded to the company’s servers on two days in July, according to the probable cause affidavit filed in the case. Synchronoss is a cloud computing company that contracts with cellphone service provider Verizon.
Investigation traced the sources of the images to a phone at Emmanuel United Church of Christ and to Solomon’s cellphone, according to police.
A subsequent search of two cellphones and three thumb drives belonging to Solomon led to the discovery of 25 images of child pornography, according to police.
During the arraignment, Solomon could be seen leaning toward his lawyer as Pendolino explained the charges and they followed along with a copy of the criminal complaint filed by police. He responded to questions from Pendolino, acknowledging that he understood the charges and stating that he had been employed by a pizza restaurant for more than four years and had resided in Meadville since 1993.
The state police investigator at the arraignment expressed support for the unsecured bail assigned by Pendolino and said that Solomon had cooperated with the investigation. The investigator expressed confidence that Solomon will “be showing up at all his hearings.”
According to the affidavit, Solomon was cooperative during a Dec. 13 search of his home and agreed to be interviewed by troopers, telling them that he views pornography but had never seen child pornography. Had he ever seen child pornography, he added, he would have deleted the images because he was “not into little kids,” according to the affidavit.
The charges against Solomon consist of six second-degree felony counts of child pornography; 19 third-degree felony counts of child pornography; one third-degree count of criminal use of a communication facility for allegedly using his phone to possess the images; and five second-degree felony counts of disseminating images of child sex acts for allegedly uploading five images onto the Synchronoss servers from his phone.
In the event of conviction, second-degree felonies in Pennsylvania carry a potential prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $25,000. Third-degree felonies carry potential prison terms of up to seven years and fines of up to $15,000.
A preliminary hearing in the case was scheduled for April 22 before Pendolino.
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