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Former Band Director At Multiple Local Districts Arrested On Child Pornography Charges

WHEELING, W. Va. (KDKA) - A former band director at multiple districts in the Pittsburgh area is facing federal child porn charges out of West Virginia. His home in Wheeling was searched a week ago, and that's when investigators said they found thousands of inappropriate photos on a thumb drive.

In the paperwork filed in federal court in West Virginia, Ryan Nicholas Wolf, 34, told investigators his interest in child porn has been something he's been struggling with since he was a teen and that he had a sexual interest in children between the ages of seven and fourteen.

When agents went to his home, they say they found a thumb drive containing thousands of images of what appeared to be minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. They believe they were minors in that age range.

Wolf also allegedly told detectives that he posted links to child porn in chat rooms and that he got a lot of pictures from other users in the chat room as well as other people participating in peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

He said he would download the pictures to his laptop, then transfer them to a thumb drive and then delete them from his computer.

KDKA learned that Wolf worked at Montour School District as an assistant band director for a year, from June of 2016 to June of 2017, then resigned. The superintendent said there were no issues reported while he was there.

Wolf was also a band director at Brownsville Area School District for a year from 2018 to 2019. The superintendent said he resigned in early 2020 and no problems were reported while he was working for the district.

Wolf appeared before a local magistrate after he was arrested and has since been released. The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of West Virginia is handling this case.

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