A Carbon County man who previously admitted to downloading and circulating child pornography was sentence to a minimum of four years in a state correctional institution, up to a maximum of 10 years.

Damian P. Smith, 27, of Lehighton, was sentenced by Judge Steven R. Serfass on 12 counts of child pornography. Serfass rejected a request by Smith’s attorney, Eric Wiltrout, of the public defender’s office, to sentence his client to two years in a state prison.

Serfass imposed terms of 24 to 60 months on each of the 12 counts, with the first two counts running consecutively with the remainder concurrently.

Serfass said that although Smith only viewed the images and never made contact with anyone, the children depicted in the images are victims and remain victims. He said actions like Smith in circulating the images “creates a market for this type of abuse.”

Case history

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by Daniel Block, a special agent with the Bureau of Criminal Investigations of the AG office:

Block received a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and learned that Facebook reported that an image of apparent child pornography was uploaded to a Facebook account.

Block viewed the image included within the CyberTip, and on Aug. 21, 2018, an administrative subpoena was sent to PenTeleData requesting information pertaining to an IP address.

On Aug. 23, Block received a response with customer information. The IP address was first seen on May 2, 2018, and last seen on June 7, 2018, and the provider identified the subscriber being reported as Smith, of the 300 block of South Third Street.

On June 18, 2019, Block received a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Block conducted surveillance at the home, and on Wednesday a search warrant for the address was signed by Senior District Judge Edward M. Lewis.

At 7:15 a.m. Thursday, agents from the AG office, state troopers and agents from Homeland Security executed the search warrant at the home.

Smith opened the rear door and was then interviewed regarding this incident. Smith was advised of his Miranda Rights, and he indicated that he understood his rights. He then said that he would answer questions without counsel being present, and signed an Advice of Rights form. Smith was asked if he would give consent to allow agents to access his cellphone, to which he consented.

The interview initially occurred outside the residence, then Smith asked for privacy and consented to being transported to the local police station to discuss this investigation, where the interview resumed.

During the interview, Smith stated his email address, and that his Facebook name is “Jonny Hammersticks” and has been for over three years. He said he lived at the address off and on his whole life, however, was specifically there during May 2018.

Smith also admitted to searching for, downloading, saving, viewing and masturbating to child pornography several times a week for the past few years. He said he was actually viewing child pornography about two hours before Block knocked on his door.

Smith said he looks at images of child pornography because they are innocent and their innocence is being taken away, and that it reminds him of when his innocence was taken.

Smith consented to an audio recorded statement.

He also said that he has a panty collection, and that he would take panties from laundry baskets or hampers of female friends without their knowledge.

A state police trooper performed a forensics preview on Smith’s cellphone and the micro SD card located inside the phone.

During this preview, it was discovered that Smith had at least 40 images of apparent child pornography which depicted prepubescent children engaging in sexual acts and depicting indecent contact with the children.

Deputy Attorney General Angela Lynn Raver said Smith was given consideration in the plea agreement for his cooperation in the investigation. She said a state term was warranted as each victim is a child and Smith used social media sites to view them and send them.

In addition to the prison term, Smith was ordered to submit to a sexual offender’s evaluation, follow all provisions of Megan’s Law concerning registration, have no unsupervised contact with any children, have no unsupervised use of the internet, get both drug and alcohol and mental health evaluations, pay court costs of about $1,000 and must register as a sexual offender for 15 years.

Smith was evaluated by the state sexual offenders assessment board and determined not to be a sexually violent predator.

Smith, who has been in the county prison since his arrest, was given credit for 462 days already served. His sentencing was done by video conference from the prison.