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Francis "Frank" Hart, 62, of Amherst, faces seven counts of possession of child porn and one count of disseminating the offending material, the Massachusetts Attorney General announced on Thursday, Dec. 22.
Police began investigating Hart in January 2021 after they received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that an email registered to him had uploaded a file containing numerous images of suspected child porn, the prosecutor said. Officers arrested him at his Amherst home in August of last year.
Investigators seized two computers, an external hard drive, and an iPhone, all of which contained child pornography, the prosecutors said. Detectives found 5,000 child sex abuse images and videos featuring girls as young as 3 on the devices taken from his Leverett Road home, MassLive reported from court records.
State police spokesman David Procopio told the Daily Hampshire Gazette last year that the agency would work with prosecutors in this case.
The charge of disseminating child porn carries a minimum 10-year sentence, and possession of the material can fetch a minimum of five years in prison per count, according to state law.
Hart retired from the Massachusetts State Police in 2016.
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