College Park mayor charged with 56 counts of child porn, resigns from office

Patrick Wojahn, the longtime mayor of College Park, resigned Wednesday night, a day after law enforcement officers raided his house and found multiple devices that they say contained child pornography.

Prince George’s County Police arrested Wojahn, 47, on Thursday and charged him with 56 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography. Along with three cellphones, police recovered a storage device, a tablet and a computer in Tuesday’s search.

Police said they were alerted Feb. 17 by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a social media account named “skippy_md” uploaded an image and videos of child pornography to a messaging app called Kik in January. Of the 37 videos recovered from the Kik account, several depict adult men engaging in sexual acts with young boys.

Detectives subpoenaed Yahoo for the email account used to create the Kik account, which returned as Wojahn’s government email address.

Wojahn told detectives during an interview during the search warrant that he owned the “skippy_md” account, according to charging documents.

Wojahn was a progressive and popular mayor of the city that’s home to the University of Maryland. First elected in 2015, Wojahn had served on the College Park City Council since 2007.

He cited the police search and “ongoing police investigation” for his abrupt resignation in a letter made public by the city of College Park on Thursday.

Mayor Pro Tem Denise Mitchell will serve as presiding officer until the city holds a special election, the city said in a statement.

“While this investigation does not involve any official city business of any kind, it is in the best interests of our community that I step aside and not serve as a distraction,” Wojahn wrote in his resignation letter. He added he is stepping away to “deal with my own mental health” and asked the public to keep him and his family in their prayers.

Wojahn faces 40 misdemeanor counts of possession of child exploitative material and 16 misdemeanor counts of distribution of child exploitative material. He is being held at the Prince George’s County jail and has a bail hearing Friday.

David Moyse is representing Wojahn. Moyse did not immediately respond to a request for comment.