A Butler man was accused of possessing a significant amount of child pornography, according to charges filed Wednesday, Oct. 11, by the Office of the Attorney General.

Gary P. McCarl Sr., 31, was charged with 30 counts of felony child pornography and one felony count of criminal use of a communication facility after an investigation that began in 2020.

According to court documents, several tips were provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding suspected child pornography images and videos.

Agents said 12 reported uploads from Dropbox, Instagram and Snapchat between September 2020 and December 2022 appeared to be child pornography. Those uploads were connected to one IP address, according to documents.

Investigators then reached out to Armstrong Telecommunications to obtain subscriber information for the IP address. They also reached out to Verizon to obtain information for a phone number connected to the Instagram account.

Documents showed the IP address was connected to McCarl’s home, and the phone number was for his cellphone.

Investigators said they executed a search warrant March 28 at McCarl’s home, and questioned him in Clarion, where he works.

When questioned about the suspected pornography, McCarl told investigators he’s seen it on several websites and chat platforms, but did not know the ages of the people in the media he has viewed.

Investigators said McCarl disclosed he had chatted with young girls on his social media accounts and exchanged explicit photos and videos with them.

In June, investigators said the National Center for Missing and Exploited children received tips about suspected child pornography. The tips came from Synchronoss Technologies, the cloud-based storage provider for the content stored on the Verizon Cloud, documents showed.

Upon further investigation, agents said several image and video uploads connected to McCarl’s phone number were suspected to be child pornography. The lead investigator wrote that those images were reviewed, and the majority appeared to be pornographic.

In total, 10 of those files were described in criminal documents by agents, though 25 media files were cited as a sample.

The images and videos depicted multiple children under the age of 13, some suspected between the ages of 1 and 3, performing sexual acts or posing provokatively.

The cloud storage account was confirmed to belong to McCarl through various saved photos and identification material.

McCarl’s preliminary hearing before District Judge Kevin O’Donnell has not yet been scheduled.