Indiana Town Council President, 73, Faces Child Porn Charges
TRAFALGAR, Ind. (AP) -- The president of the Trafalgar Town Council faces two felony charges of child exploitation after police said 74 images and videos of children as young as 2 engaged in sexual acts were found on his computer.
Max Knapp, 73, left jail Friday after posting a $16,000 bond following his arrest, after a computer repair business notified police it had found the downloaded files on Knapp's computer.
Knapp told Johnson County detectives he takes no prurient interest in the videos and downloaded many without watching them, according to a court affidavit.
"Why I did it, I don't know," he told police. "It wasn't a turn-on at all. I'm not a pedophile and I don't mess with kids or anything."
Knapp was re-elected last year as a councilman in Trafalgar, a town of about 800 people 25 miles south of Indianapolis.
Knapp told investigators he downloaded the files from a free file-sharing Web site where people download music and videos. Knapp told a detective that he had been downloading music on the site, discovered child pornography was on it and downloaded files out of curiosity.
He said he deleted about half of the files he downloaded without watching them.
"It was about curiosity and why a dad or uncle or whatever could do that to a child," he told police, according to the affidavit. "I thought it was all deleted."
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