Hatboro man headed to jail for possessing child pornography

NORRISTOWN >> A Hatboro man is facing some time behind bars after he admitted to possessing thousands of images of child pornography on multiple electronic devices.

David Stewart Winter, 61, of the unit block of Drexel Road, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 6 to 23 months in the county jail after he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of possessing child pornography in connection with incidents that occurred between December 2020 and April 2021.

Judge Wendy G. Rothstein, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, also ordered Winter to complete three years’ probation following parole, meaning Winter will be under court supervision for about five years. Winter is prohibited from having contact with minors

The judge ordered Winter

to report to the jail in Lower Providence on Dec. 2 to begin serving the period of incarceration.

Winter must undergo a psychosexual evaluation and comply with all recommendations for treatment. Additionally, he will be placed under sex offender supervision during the parole and probationary periods.

Winter also faces a 15year requirement to report his address to state police in order to comply with Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act.

Assistant District Attorney Karla Pisarcik prosecuted the case. Defense lawyer Matthew Wilkov represented Winter.

The investigation began on March 19, 2021, when detectives received a CyberTip generated by Yahoo Inc. regarding a user uploading suspected child pornography, according to a criminal complaint filed by Conshohocken Detective William Walter, who is cross-sworn as a special county detective with a task force that investigates internet crimes against children.

Detectives subsequently determined the image was child pornography depicting a female child, believed to be between 5-and-7-years-old, involved in a sexually explicit pose, according to court documents. Detectives also traced the internet user address related to the Yahoo account to Winter’s Hatboro residence, according to the arrest affidavit.

Armed with a search warrant, detectives went to Winter’s residence on April 22 and seized several electronic devices. At that time, Winter admitted to possessing images and videos of child pornography on a thumb drive attached to a desktop computer.

“David Stewart Winter admitted that he has been viewing child pornography images/videos for many years for the purpose of masturbating,” Walter alleged in the criminal complaint.

A forensic examination of the seized electronic devices found that they contained 4,797 images and videos of children engaged in sexual acts and in various stages of nudity, detectives alleged. Many of the images and videos contained infants and toddlers who were being sexually abused by an adult, according to court papers.

At the time of Winter’s arrest, prosecutors said investigators with the Special Victims Unit of the Montgomery County Detective Bureau, along with specially trained and sworn detectives from police departments throughout Montgomery County, routinely work with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to protect children from internet predators by aggressively and proactively investigating internet crimes that exploit children.