An Allegheny College professor of English is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Erie later this month for a preliminary hearing on federal child pornography charges after alleged child pornography images were found at his home Wednesday.

Kirk Nesset of 375 Ben Avon St., Meadville, made an initial appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court before U.S. District Magistrate Susan Paradise Baxter on one count each of receipt and distribution of child pornography and possession of child pornography filed by the FBI.

The receipt and distribution and possession charges each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. 

A search warrant executed Wednesday at Nesset’s Meadville home found “thousands of images and movies depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct in a folder labeled ‘kstore’” on an external computer hard drive, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case.

An estimated 550,000 jpg image and movie files were found within the ‘kstore’ folder with a video subfolder containing more than 30 subfolders labeled with names indicative of child pornography, according to the complaint. However, the FBI’s complaint did not indicate if all of the files found were child pornography.

The FBI’s investigation of Nesset began in August when an FBI agent in Phoenix, Ariz., obtained child pornography files via a peer-to-peer file-sharing network and traced them through Internet provider subscriber information to Nesset’s addresses in Prescott, Ariz., and Meadville, according to the complaint.

Pennsylvania State Police located additional links tying Nesset’s Meadville address to online sharing of child pornography, according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges Nesset used Allegheny College’s address for billing for computer service to a home Nesset has in Prescott, Ariz.

After being advised of his rights during the search of his home, Nesset admitted to authorities to downloading child pornography from the Internet for the past two years and that he had organized his files “by category,” according to the complaint.

Nesset told authorities he knew that he was sharing the pornography in his shared folder with others and that “downloading child pornography was wrong,” the complaint said.

Kathy Roos, an Allegheny College spokeswoman, had little comment on the matter.

“We just became aware of this matter,” Roos said Wednesday afternoon. “We don’t have any comment at this time.”

Nesset was released on $10,000 unsecured bond following his initial court appearance Wednesday, Christian Trabold, an assistant U.S. Attorney, said. Nesset is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing Oct. 15 before Baxter, Trabold said.

Keith Gushard can be reached at 724-6370 or by email at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.