Court documents revealed new information about a Berks County child pornography investigation that ended with 13 arrests June 19.
Timothy Repsik, 18, of Colebrookdale, Alan Miller, 53, of Boyertown, and Phillip Knabb, 27, of Douglassville, were among those arrested in connection with the investigation. The three men face more than 10 counts of possession of child pornography each, according to a press release from the Berks County Detectives Office.
Men from Reading, Shillington, Womelsdorf, Sinking Spring and Exeter were also arrested.
The investigations into Miller and Knabb began in 2013, according to court documents.
Phillip KnabbOn Oct. 7 of last year, officers from the Lower Heidelberg Police Department were conducting an investigation of suspected child pornography shared on the Internet when they found two videos allegedly downloaded by Knabb.
Both videos showed children under the age of 13 engaging in sexual acts with each other and with adults, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
A court order was issued in November and investigators received information that the IP address where the files were downloaded belonged to Knabb.
Officers from the Amity Police Department searched Knabb’s house on Jan. 29 of this year. The search uncovered an external hard drive and a cell phone, police said.
‘There were seven digital images/digital videos of child pornography present’ on the hard drive, police said.
According to police, there were duplicates of the videos Knabb allegedly downloaded in October.
He was arraigned by District Judge Victor M. Frederick IV and given $25,000 unsecured bail. Knabb is expected in court again on June 25 at 9 a.m.
Alan MillerAn investigation into Miller’s alleged actions began almost a year ago, according to police.
On July 9, 2013, the Delaware County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force called the tip line at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) after they received information of child exploitation.
According to the report to the tip line, an AOL subscriber allegedly sent a photo that contained child pornography via email. The image, according to police, was sent on May 31, 2013 from an account in Boyertown.
A county detective reviewed the image on July 12 of last year. The alleged image was of a girl under the age of 18, police said.
Less than a month later, officers executed a search warrant for Miller’s house.
During their investigation, officers informed Miller that he was not under arrest and had no obligation to speak with them.
‘Miller was advised that he would not be arrested today and he would not be coming with us,’ police said in the affidavit of probable cause. ‘Miller stated, ‘Good, I just made a mistake.”
Police did not say if Miller elaborated on his statement.
Then on March 18 of this year, Miller came ‘on his own’ to the detectives unit, police said.
According to police, Miller allegedly admitted to downloading child pornography and having ‘computer conversations with others relating to child pornography topics.’
Miller was arrested Thursday and arraigned by District Judge Michael G. Hartman. He was given unsecured $25,000 bail and is expected in court again on July 2 at 1:30 p.m.
Timothy RepsikRepsik, one of the youngest men arrested on Thursday, allegedly told police that he used his cell phone and his laptop to download illegal images.
The investigation into Repsik’s alleged actions began in February 2014, according to police.
The NCMEC received a complaint that images ‘of suspected child pornography were uploaded to photobucket.com’ on Feb. 21.
Another complaint was received by NCMEC on April 21 after images were allegedly sent from Repsik’s IP address to another person from an instant messaging application on his computer.
At 6:25 a.m. on May 2, officers from the Berks County Detectives Criminal Investigations Unit served a search warrant to Repsik, police said.
During the search, Repsik allegedly admitted to owning two email addresses and an account on Photobucket as well as using his cell phone and laptop to download child pornography, police said.
Four days later, Repsik voluntarily came to the Berks County Detectives Office for a second interview. During that interview, he allegedly admitted again to downloading child pornography, police said.
Repsik, like Miller, was arraigned on June 19 by Hartman and issued $25,000 unsecured bail. He is also expected in court on July 2 at 1:45 p.m.
