Robert Richard Bahm, 78, of Lansdale. Credit: Montgomery County Detectives
A Lansdale man has been arrested and charged with 167 felony counts of possession of child pornography after more than 100,000 images and six videos of child sexual abuse material were allegedly found on his laptop while being serviced at Best Buy in Feburary.
Robert Richard Bahm, 78, of an apartment on the 600 block of South Broad Street, was arraigned April 11 before Magisterial District Judge John Kessler, who set bail at $50,000 unsecured, according to court records.
The investigation began on Feb. 24 at 11:43 a.m., when Montgomery Township Police were called to the Best Buy at Airport Square for a report of potential child pornography on a customer’s laptop, police said. A Geek Squad employee reported that Bahm came to the store around 11 a.m. to get Microsoft Office installed onto his laptop, and when Bahm was told he would have to leave the computer at the store for the installation, he allegedly became nervous and asked for his service to be expedited, police said.
Bahm left the laptop and left the store, according to the criminal complaint.
After logging into Bahm’s laptop, the employee plugged in a USB thumb drive to begin installing Microsoft software onto the laptop, police said. Upon going into Windows File Explorer, the “Downloads” folder allegedly showed two downloads with inappropriate titles relating to child pornography, police said, at which point Best Buy immediately called police.
Montgomery Township Police seized the laptop from Best Buy and called Bahm to come to the station, police said. When interrogated by police over why they wanted to talk to him, Bahm allegedly said it was because of pornography on his laptop, according to the complaint.
Bahm allegedly told detectives he watched adult pornography regularly, specifically “women in pantyhose,” according to the complaint, but could not give police the names of any pornographic websites he visits. When Bahm was asked why police would be concerned about adult pornography on his laptop, he allegedly said that occasionally pornographic images of children will appear on the screen, police said. He allegedly told police the children’s ages are between five and 12 in the images, according to the docket, and said he has searched for “preteens in pantyhose,” but those searches never showed him child pornography, police said.
A search warrant was obtained for the laptop and the county detectives conducted a forensic investigation, which allegedly revealed 100,326 images and six videos of child sexual abuse material, police said. Out of the 100,326 images, 8,000 of them were not duplicates, according to the report.
Police said the children in the videos and images ranged in age from 3 to 7 years old, per the affidavit.
Bahm has a preliminary hearing set for May 14 before Magisterial District Judge Andrea Duffy, according to court documents.
