A Seven Fields man who pleaded no contest to possessing child pornography in June was sentenced Thursday in Butler court to two-years probation with the first nine months on house arrest with electronic monitoring.

Jacob J. Schmader, 43, must also register as a Tier I sex offender, placing him on the government's radar for 10 years. Schmader was charged and arrested in November 2018 by state police after a search warrant was served at his home. The arrest was the result of an undercover investigation that began in May of that year, according to court documents.

Authorities reported a computer connected to the BitTorrent file sharing network was found to “seed” child pornography to the network.

Investigators downloaded files from that computer to confirm their contents. Seeding is a technological term used in peer-to-peer network sharing systems like BitTorrent. It describes the process computers use to share videos with other users connected to the network.

Unlike Netflix or YouTube, BitTorrent doesn't have a central database, instead users rely on each other to be a distributor, or seeder, of content. There is no charge to join the BitTorrent network.

Police traced the IP address using the BitTorrent account, and then subpoenaed records to track the owner of the address. Authorities found the owner to be Schmader, according to the criminal complaint.

The state police Northwest Computer Crime Task Force conducted the warrant search. The task force is responsible for investigating computer-related crimes ranging from fraud to child pornography.

According to the complaint, Schmader admitted to investigators that he downloaded the files.

Police also found two hard drives and a laptop belonging to Schmader that contained more than 500 child pornography videos at his home, documents said.

Schmader did not address the court when given the chance to do so before his sentencing.