ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Authorities are accusing an Allentown man of having multiple videos depicting child sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
Matthew Francis, 29, of Allentown, is charged with felony counts of Sexual Abuse of Children- Possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material, and Criminal Use of a Communication Facility, the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office said in a news release.<\/p>\n
Francis was arraigned on the charges Friday and is in Lehigh County Jail under $100,000 bail.<\/p>\n
His preliminary hearing is scheduled for 9:45 a.m. Sept. 18 before Magisterial District Judge Karen Devine.<\/p>\n
At this time, Francis is in custody, but has not yet been arraigned on the charges, the DA\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 4, 2026, Pennsylvania State Police received two tips from the National Center for Exploited Children that videos depicting child sexual abuse material had been uploaded, according to the news release.<\/p>\n
The DA\u2019s office said the videos had been uploaded using an IP address that was traced by investigators to Francis\u2019 apartment in the unit block of North Seventh Street. The phone number uploading the files was also identified and traced by investigators to Francis, the DA\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
According to the DA\u2019s office, one video included a child approximately 10-13 years old being raped by a man.<\/p>\n
A second video included a child approximately 5-10 years old being sexually abused by a man, according to the news release.<\/p>\n
The DA\u2019s office said a third video included two children approximately 11-14 years old engaged in a sex act with each other.<\/p>\n
Allentown and Pennsylvania State Police searched Francis\u2019 apartment Friday, and investigators found at least two additional videos depicting child sex abuse material, the DA\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
Francis was taken into custody at the time of the search, according to the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Authorities are accusing an Allentown man of having multiple videos depicting child sexual abuse. Matthew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,1646,153,155,154,7259,10057,4474,1021,433],"class_list":["post-283942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-arrest","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-child-pornography","tag-child-sexual-abuse","tag-criminal-charges","tag-investigation","tag-lehigh-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}