NORRISTOWN — A Conshohocken man faces some time behind bars followed by periods of house arrest and probation after he admitted to distributing child pornography while using a social media application.
Benjamin Robert Kovacic, 30, of the unit block of Maple Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 2 to 23 months in the county jail after he pleaded guilty to felony charges of distributing child pornography in connection with incidents that occurred in June 2020.
Judge Steven T. O’Neill ordered Kovacic to report to jail on Oct. 18 to begin serving the sentence.
After Kovacic is paroled from the county jail, he will be placed on five months of house arrest and also must complete an 8-year probationary period.
Kovacic will be under sex offender supervision during the parole and probationary periods and he will be prohibited from having contact with minors. Kovacic’s internet usage will be restricted.
Kovacic also faces a 25-year requirement to report his address to state police in order to comply with Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act, previously known as Megan’s Law.
The investigation began in August 2020, when detectives received a so-called “CyberTip” from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a user of the social media application Kik Messenger uploaded and shared with another user or group of users five video files depicting child pornography, according to the criminal complaint filed by Conshohocken Detective William Walter.
The video files depicted underage girls, some as young as 10, engaged in sexual acts or poses.
Detectives traced the user of the internet account to Kovacic and showed up at his residence with a search warrant. Detectives seized a cellphone, a desktop computer and a cloud storage device from Kovacic, according to court papers.
During an interview by detectives, Kovacic “admitted he was the individual responsible for the child pornography being uploaded through Kik,” Walter alleged.
“Benjamin Kovacic admitted that he would obtain Kik chat links to enter group chats. Benjamin Kovacic admitted that in these group chats child pornography would be shared and that he would then copy some of the past videos into a separate group chat to gain access to that group chat,” Walter alleged in the arrest affidavit.
Charges of criminal use of a communication facility and possessing an instrument of crime were dismissed against Kovacic in exchange for his guilty plea to the most serious child pornography charges.
Assistant District Attorney Jediah Grobstein handled the case. Defense lawyer Basil Beck represented Kovacic during the court proceedings.
