Two Franklin County men charged with child porn possession

Two Waynesboro men were arrested this week on charges of possession of child pornography.

The cases are not related.

Justin Michael Dingle and Justin Frank Chappell, both 36, have been in Franklin County Jail since Thursday and Friday, respectively, according to online court records.

Magisterial District Judge Annie Gomez Shockey set Dingle's bail at $250,000 and Chappell's at $300,000, records show.

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Dingle charged with 51 counts

Dingle faces 50 counts of child porn possession and one count of criminal use of a communication facility, according to court records.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Child Predator Section began investigating in July based on two tips made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A cloud service known as Synchronoss reported that a user uploaded two files of child pornography within the previous few days, according to court documents.

A special agent with the AG's office found that the tips each referred to the same file, a sexually explicit image of two prepubescent girls, the agent wrote in court documents. Two additional tips in January also indicated that the file was again uploaded to the same account on separate occasions in December.

In addition, investigators previously received five tips that reported at least 18 files of child pornography were uploaded by the same account, according to court documents.

Through a subpoena for Verizon subscriber information, investigators learned that Dingle's phone number matched the number connected to the cloud account.

A subpoena to the Synchornoss cloud service for the contents of the suspect account revealed 95 child pornography files saved in a folder, 25 of which depicted a prepubescent child under 10 years old, according to court documents.

The account also contained selfies of Dingle, plus photos of his driver's license and other documents containing identifying information for the defendant.

Magisterial District Judge Kelly Rock, Fayetteville, is schedule to preside over Dingle's preliminary hearing at 1:30 p.m. March 5 in Franklin County Central Court, located in courtroom 6 at the Franklin County Judicial Center.

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Child porn files found on Chappell's phone, police say

The Pennsylvania State Police Computer Crimes Unit's investigation that led to Chappell's arrest began after Yahoo submitted a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in October 2022 reporting that a child pornography file had been uploaded to its system, according to court documents.

Yahoo reported that one of its email accounts sent the file to another Yahoo account, and that both accounts were associated with the same phone number. Through a subpoena issued to AT&T in March 2023, police determined the phone number was assigned to Chappell, according to court documents.

Police used PennDOT records to identify Chappell's address, which was then used to subpoena Comcast for any IP addresses associated with the residence. The results showed that the Yahoo email exchange in 2022 originated from Chappell's residence, court documents state. (An earlier subpoena to Comcast for information on the subscriber assigned to the IP address used to send the Yahoo email resulted in no records found).

Police executed search warrants on Feb. 6 that resulted in the seizure of Chappell's Apple iPhone and a desktop computer. A forensic analysis of the phone showed it contained three images depicting children between 8 and 10 years old being sexually abused, according to court documents.

The same files are contained in a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database as known images of child sexual abuse material.

During a brief interview with Chappell on Feb. 6, Chappell confirmed his cell phone number and other identifying information before declining to answer any more questions without an attorney.

Chappell's preliminary hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. March 5 before Gomez-Shockey in Franklin County Central Court.

Amber South can be reached at asouth@publicopinionnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Chambersburg Public Opinion: PSP, AG's office charge Franklin County men with child porn possession