NORRISTOWN — An Upper Salford Township man is awaiting a sentencing hearing in Montgomery County Court after he admitted to possessing child pornography on his cellphone.
Lawrence Francis Cole, 34, of the 1700 block of Hendricks Road, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of possessing child pornography in connection with incidents that occurred in 2021.
Judge Thomas C. Branca deferred sentencing until August so that court officials can complete a background investigation report about Cole, who will undergo drug, alcohol, mental health and psychosexual evaluations.
Cole also faces a sexually violent predator assessment by the Pennsylvania Sexual Offender Assessment Board. Those classified as predators face more stringent restrictions while serving parole and probationary periods.
Cole, who remains free on bail pending sentencing, faces a possible maximum sentence of 5 to 10 years in prison on the charge. However, state sentencing guidelines could allow for a lesser sentence.
Regardless the sentence that Cole eventually receives, he faces a 15-year requirement to report his address to state police in order to comply with the state’s Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act, previously known as Megan’s Law.
Cole was arrested during an investigation by members of the Pennsylvania State Police Southeast Computer Crime Task Force.
That investigation began in March 2022 after officials of the social media app Snapchat filed a report with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children indicating they became aware that “videos depicting child pornography were being uploaded to their Snapchat server by a user,” according to the criminal complaint filed by state police Trooper Dante Poole.
The Snapchat user uploaded the files to the app on Dec. 16, 2021, police said. The user’s email and internet address eventually were traced to Cole, according to the criminal complaint.
The videos depicted female children between the ages of 6 and 12 engaged in sexual acts with adult males, according to court documents.
Armed with a search warrant, police went to Cole’s residence on Jan. 20, 2023, and Cole provided police with a statement.
“Cole admitted to viewing and saving child pornography files with his cellphone,” Poole alleged, adding Cole claimed he hadn’t viewed child pornography files since December 2022. “Cole related that he’s not proud of himself for looking at the files and not sure why he does it.”
Cole allegedly told police he would use internet search engines that took him “to a Russian site where he would view and download child pornography files.”
“Cole provided a path to find the child pornography files on his phone,” Poole alleged, adding a full forensic analysis of Cole’s cellphone was completed by state police.
Police alleged they found 16 images and one video depicting apparent child pornography on a memory card removed from Cole’s cellphone.
A charge of criminal use of a communication facility is slated to be dismissed against Cole at time of sentencing.
