A Carbon County man accused of unlawful contact with minors and corruption of minors has had his charges bound over to Carbon County Court.

Timothy Smith, 44, of Lehighton, was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing Wednesday before District Judge William Kissner of Palmerton.Instead, Smith chose to waive his right to the hearing, and will appear next month for a pretrial status conference in the district attorney's office at the Carbon County Courthouse in Jim Thorpe.Smith faces charges of unlawful contact with a minor; criminal solicitation; criminal use of communication facility; and corruption of minors.He remains free in lieu of $75,000 unsecured bail.According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by Trooper Erin Cawley of the Pennsylvania State Police, on Sept. 3, Cawley was contacted by Corporal Peter Salerno, coordinator of the Pennsylvania State Police Computer Crime Unit, Breinigsville, in reference to an investigation where Smith contacted a 13-year-old female from Virginia via "Yahoo! Chat," utilizing a certain username.In the course of the chat sessions, dated Jan. 13 and Jan. 18, Smith asked the victim for pictures in various states of undress, as well as requesting she masturbate while chatting with him.An investigation was initiated with the Bedford County Sheriff's office, located in Virginia.As a result of the investigation, a court order was served upon "Yahoo!" results, which revealed the subscriber information for a certain username was registered to the victim, who utilized a specific IP address.It was also determined that the IP address is a public IP address, registered to Earthlink, Inc.A subsequent court order served upon Earthlink, Inc. revealed the other IP address was assigned to Smith, with an address of Trexlertown.Upon determining the subject in question lived in Pennsylvania, the investigation was turned over to the Pennsylvania State Police, Southeast Computer Crime Unit.Further investigation revealed Smith's physical address was in Towamensing Township, Carbon County, which falls within the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania State Police, Troop N, Lehighton Station.A search warrant was prepared, approved, and served upon the Smith residence on Sept. 17 at which time two stand-alone computers were seized, as well as a cell phone.Smith admitted communicating with this minor in particular, as well as many others.