http://postgazette.com/pg/07169/795157-100.stm
Caste Village owner pleads guilty to child porn charge
By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The president of the company that owns Caste Village in Whitehall pleaded guilty this morning to possessing child pornography.Felix A. Caste, 69, faces a likely sentencing range of 46 to 57 months in prison when he is sentenced at a later date.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen R. Kaufman, service technicians were working to install fiber-optic cable in Mr. Caste’s home on May 23, 2006, when they stumbled upon six compact discs on top of an air duct in his basement. One of the workers put one of the discs in a computer in the basement and saw what he thought was child pornography, the prosecutor said.
After leaving the residence, the worker went to the Mt. Lebanon police, who passed the information on to the United States Postal Inspection Service.
A search was conducted of Mr. Caste’s home on June 1, and officials found eight CDs, seven of them containing child pornography.
“Mr. Caste was cooperative during the search,” Mr. Kaufman said.
In all the discs contained six videos and a number of still images. Mr. Caste’s sentence will be enhanced because he had 300 to 600 images and also because some of the images were of pre-pubescent children.
Defense attorney J. Alan Johnson told Senior U.S. District Judge Alan N. Bloch, who took the plea, that the discs contained mostly adult pornography, and only about 15 percent related to children.
Mr. Caste was taken into custody at the end of the hearing. He asked to be held at the Beaver County jail pending sentencing.
