Former Air Force Lt. Facing 39 Felony Counts of Child Porn

A former Air Force lieutenant from Hatfield and father of an 8 year old faces 74 felony counts in the county court of common pleas related to his alleged involvement in sharing child pornography videos and pictures over LimeWire.

Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Abidiwan-Lupo withdrew 25 of 30 counts of criminal use of a communication facility against Jayson Dicho, 31, of Heather Court in , during his preliminary hearing Thursday before District Judge Andrea Duffy in Montgomeryville.

In addition to the above five counts, Dicho faces the following charges at county arraignment July 18:

• Five felony counts of dissemination of photos of films of child sex acts
• 39 felony counts of child pornography

Duffy allowed Dicho to be able to see his 8-year-old son with court supervision. She requested that the mother of Dicho's son be aware of the charges he is facing in the county.

Duffy also allowed Dicho to use a computer to communicate with his attorney and search for a job.

Hatfield Township Detective David Schanes testified that the evidence found on Dicho's computer depicted children under the age of 18 engaged in sexual acts with adult men and acts of oral sex.

All in all, there were 39 total files of child porn on Dicho's computer, Schanes said.

Dicho's attorney Adam Zucker argued that Schanes did not use his client's name during testimony, but Duffy said the search warrant shows that Schanes was present during the search at Dicho's home.

Zucker also argued against the five charges for dissemination of child pornography. He said there was no indication as to when the computer may have been used to bring the five files into it.

"We don't know if it was one time, 10 times or 39 times," Zucker said. "Just because there were 39 images doesn't mean 39 counts."

Abidiwan-Lupo said every time a person uses a computer to share files over the Internet, they are using a communication facility. Abidiwan-Lupo alleged that Dicho allowed his computer to share files on a Gnutella network.

"On LimeWire, you download files off other people. People can choose what to share. You are forced to share to use the system," Abidiwan-Lupo said.

Here's information from our earlier story on this case:

On March 24, 2012, Detective Mary Anders of the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office County Detective Bureau received an investigation package from Officer Jeff Cummins of New Britain Township Police, according to the criminal complaint. Cummins is a member of the Bucks County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

On Feb. 15, 2012, Cummins was acting undercover and conducting searches for individuals trading in child pornography, according to the complaint.

Cummins found a computer on the Gnutella network that was sharing 21 files, most of which were previously identified as "files of interest" and files of child pornography, according to the complaint.

Cummins conducted a direct connect to the computer, whose IP address was 68.84.219.147. The suspect was using  BearShare Lite 5.2.5.1 and the Global Unique Identifier was 4DDE2E3402BD3251DFDE677D7724E0E4, according to the complaint.

At 3:56 p.m. Feb. 15, Cummins downloaded the files listed from the IP address and received five complete downloads, according to the complaint.

The downloaded files were reviewed by Cummins and Anders, and determined all five files depicted children under 18 engaged in sexual acts and child pornography, according to the complaint.

Screen captures were taken during the downloads to show they were downloaded from a computer with the above IP address.

A check of publicly available records online indicated the IP address was assigned to Comcast Cable Communications. On March 15, Cummins obtained a court order from Judge Jeffrey Finley authorizing Comcast to pony up the subscriber of the IP address, according to the complaint.

On March 16, Verizon Legal Compliance responded to the request, indicating the subscriber as Jayson Dicho of Heather Court, according to the complaint.

Police obtained a search warrant on April 11 from Duffy for Dicho's residence. On April 12, at 5:50 a.m., Hatfield Township Police Detective David Schanes and Anders executed the warrant, according to the complaint. 

Two computers and four other items of evidence were seized, according to the complaint. 

On April 13, Schanes conducted a forensic examination of the HP Pavilion desktop computer and confirmed that Dicho had BearShare Lite 5.2.5.1 installed and confirmed the above GUID, according to the complaint.

Schanes found more than 30 images and videos of child pornography depicting children under 18 engaged in sexual acts or in sexually explicit poses, according to the complaint. Schanes also found the five files that were downloaded by Cummins.

Dicho is a fugitive from justice, according to police. He has no record in Pennsylvania, police said.

Police said that during a search of Dicho's Hatfield Township home, an AR-15 was recovered, as were two handguns.

Read more: