James Rudnik, 68, of Montgomery Township.
A Montgomery Township man is facing child pornography charges following an 11-month investigation by the Montgomery County Detective Bureau.
James Rudnik, 68, of the 100 block of Gwynedd Lea Drive, has been charged with two felony counts of possession of child pornography and one felony count of criminal use of a communication facility, as a result of the investigation.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, county detectives received a cybertip on Oct. 8, 2019, regarding a single image of a female between the ages of 4-and-6-years-old that was bound with tape from her hands to her feet with her private areas exposed. The tip was submitted to the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children by Microsoft, who located the image in a user’s OneDrive account.
The report states that police were able to trace the OneDrive account to Rudnik, and on Nov. 6, 2019, a search warrant was executed at Rudnik’s home on Gwynedd Lea Drive.
Investigators said Rudnik was traveling for work in Bismarck, North Dakota at the time the warrant was executed. With the assistance of the Bismarck Police Department, Rudnik was taken into custody and his laptop was seized following an additional search warrant obtained by Bismarck Police.
The criminal complaint states that Rudnik allegedly confessed to being the owner of the OneDrive account and added that he had used the laptop to search for and save child pornography. The complaint quotes Rudnik as stating that he had saved between 10 and 100 images of child pornography to his laptop computer.
A forensic examination of the laptop would later reveal more than 225 images of children under the age of 18 engaged in prohibited sexual activities, the complaint states. More than 20 of the images involved children under the age of 10 years old engaged in sexual activities, investigators said.
Rudnik was taken into custody on Sept. 17 and arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Andrea Duffy, who set bail at $25,000 unsecured. Rudnik was then released from custody, and his next court appearance is a preliminary hearing in front of Judge Duffy on Sept. 29 at 1:15 p.m.
(All suspects and defendants are innocent until proven guilty. This story was compiled using court records and the affidavit of probable cause.)
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