A former Penn Forest Township auditor and candidate for state representative was charged in a child pornography investigation, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin and South Whitehall Township Police Chief Glen Dorney announced Wednesday.

Matthew Christopher Schutter, 53, of South Whitehall Township, is charged with 20 counts each of sexual abuse of children – possession of child pornography first offense and criminal use of a communications facility; both third degree felonies.

Schutter was taken into custody at his home today without incident. He will be arraigned at the Central Booking Center later today.

On June 2, Google Inc. identified two child sex assault videos on their servers and filed cyber tips with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The tip included that the videos were uploaded by an email address associated with Schutter and Google provided additional details identifying Schutter as the owner of the account.

The investigation revealed that the videos were traced to Schutter’s account. A search warrant was served Aug. 21 at Schutter’s home and a tablet and cellphone that belonged to Schutter were analyzed by detectives at The Officer David M. Petzold Memorial Digital Forensics Laboratory of Lehigh County at DeSales University.

The investigation revealed additional child pornography images and videos on the devices that belong to Schutter.

He was a candidate for Penn Forest supervisor in 2011, Jim Thorpe School Board in 2013, Carbon County Sheriff in 2015; state representative in 2016; and Jim Thorpe School Board in 2017. He was elected to Penn Forest auditor in 2013 and served until he left the area in 2018.

Schutter ran as a Libertarian candidate for South Whitehall commissioner in 2021 and state representative in 2022.

He’s been charged with numerous prior offenses, mostly for disorderly conduct and related offenses. He pleaded guilty to assaulting a Carbon County detective in 2016.

In 2020, he was removed from a Lehigh County meeting for causing a disruption.

Martin commended county Detectives Michael Millan, Scott McCulloch and Robert Toronzi for their work on the case.