A Whitehall resident has been charged with possessing and sharing child pornography.

According to an affidavit of probable cause, on Aug. 16, 2013, Tyler Lee Graumenz, 23, of 3007 S. Second St., was charged with one count each of sexual abuse of children under the statute dealing with child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication facility, both felonies of the third degree, and one count of sending/receiving obscene or other sexual materials via computer, a misdemeanor of the first degree.

According to the affidavit, an Allentown Police Department officer was conducting an investigation of computers whose users were sharing images of child sexual assaults on the Internet. The officer used software to query searches on a network for known codes for images when he discovered an Internet provider address. A list of shared files were recorded that included file names.

Trooper James Ford of the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations, Southeast Computer Crimes Unit at the Fogelsville Station, established a connection with the computer sharing the files and downloaded from the computer six files that were later identified as child pornography, the affidavit says. The Internet provider address was assigned to RCN Corp., which identified the subscriber's name and gave an address of 3007 S. Second St.

On Aug. 13, members of the Computer Crimes Unit went to the address, the affidavit says. Two computers were in the house, and a file of child pornography was discovered during a consent search of one of the computers at the residence. The two computers were removed from the residence and were submitted for forensic analysis, through which discovered a file of child pornography on a hard drive, according to the affidavit.

Graumenz, a civilian employee of the Pennsylvania State Police, was a dispatcher at the Lehighton barracks from March 2013 until Aug. 13, when he was discharged.