Local man facing child sex charges after crimes uncovered in FBI sting operation

CHESWICK, Pa. — A Cheswick man is behind bars, and it started with a social media site.

“That’s where you are going to see those cases where people are talking to someone online and they believe to be a juvenile and when they show up to meet that person, they find out it’s actually an FBI agent,” said Timothy Wolford with FBI Pittsburgh.

That’s the situation in Joshua Sandusky’s case. An undercover FBI agent posed online as a 14-year-old girl and according to court documents, Sandusky started sending the girl nude photos of himself, even after he knew her age.

In that complaint, after sending those photos on July 9, he told the girl to delete them so her mother wouldn’t find them, stating, “Just making sure she’ll kill u and I’ll be dead or in jail.”

Wolford said these types of crimes are on the rise.

“The internet has proliferated and as children are using more and more devices online, that’s opened up avenues of opportunities for subjects to contact children and try to exploit them through those different applications,” Wolford said.

In the court paperwork, Sandusky did ask the undercover agent multiple times to send nude photos back to him. When officers showed up at his home, the complaint shows Sandusky admitted to asking for them. He said, “I know, and it was stupid of me.”

“There were search warrants that were executed on my client’s phone, on his house, on his person, so this is going to be a very document-driven case. There are allegedly images. Generally speaking, when you are dealing with the federal government or attorney general, you get a lot of discovery, sometimes a banker’s box full of discovery,” said attorney Blaine Jones.

Jones plans to go through all the evidence to help his client, as Sandusky plans to plead not guilty at his arraignment in May.

“He’s eager to get out. He’s eager to get back to work and to provide for his family,” Jones said.

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