Repeat offender indicted in child porn case

A Hanover Township man convicted on federal child pornography counts in 2006 and imprisoned has been charged again with child porn possession.

Roderick T. Long, 56, was indicted Tuesday in U.S. District Court following an investigation by state police.

Long possessed child porn images and videos in computer graphics and digital files last March, prosecutors said.

He was originally charged in state court with 50 counts of child porn possession but the case was adopted by the U.S. attorney’s office. Penalties for child porn are generally harsher in the federal system than in the state courts.

Long, formerly of Ross, was previously prosecuted federally for receipt of child pornography in 2004 and pleaded guilty two years later. As part of the case, prosecutors presented evidence that he traveled to Emporium in Cameron County between May and November 2003 to meet with the mother of a 2-year-old girl and have sex with the child.

The case started with the arrest of a Texas man for distributing child porn. Through that investigation, FBI agents discovered that Long was sending money to Angela Larkin, formerly of Emporium, in exchange for photos of her 2-year-old.

Long and Larkin engaged in explicit online chats about the girl. Prosecutors said he then traveled to have sex with the child. Prosecutors dropped federal charges related to that conduct, but they introduced that evidence at sentencing for the pornography possession.

Long was sentenced to federal prison in 2006 to 121 months in prison. He was released in 2013.

Larkin, 51, was prosecuted in the Middle District of Pennsylvania and is in federal prison.