Delaware County man busted for kiddie-porn, again

If sex offender Anthony Diodoro was awake before his probation officer paid him a surprise visit, maybe he would have had a chance to hide the Apple laptop that authorities say was stocked full of kiddie porn.

But some folks apparently never learn.

Diodoro was busted in June less than a year after he was released following a conviction upheld in a landmark state Supreme Court case in May 2009 that determined viewing and accessing child-porn over the Internet constitutes "control" of it.

The 30-year-old tattoo artist from Ridley Township was charged yesterday with 25 counts of possession of child pornography and criminal use of a communication facility after he allegedly downloaded kiddie porn via LimeWire, said Delaware County District Attorney G. Michael Green.

Probation officers visited Diodoro's home in June, on Baltimore Avenue near Belmont, and found him asleep in the basement. The officers found the laptop on the floor after Diodoro's father allowed them into the house.

Many of the 72 videos that police found featured prepubescent children engaged in sexual acts, and several involved the same female toddler, who was younger than 3, Green said.

Diodoro was prohibited from unsupervised use of a computer as part of his probation. Prosecutors said Diodoro admitted to police that the laptop was his.

He was first convicted for viewing child-porn in 2005 and sentenced to nine to 23 months in jail followed by five years' probation.

He appealed the decision, however, and a Superior Court panel overturned the lower-court ruling in 2006, finding that child-porn on a computer is insufficient evidence that someone had viewed it.

The state appealed in 2007 and the full Superior Court decided to uphold Diodoro's conviction. Diodoro didn't give up. He filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court that upheld the lower court's ruling.

"An individual manifests . . . knowing control of child pornography when he purposefully searches it out on the Internet and intentionally views it on his computer," Chief Justice Ronald Castille wrote for the court.