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  Schuylkill Priest Pleads Guilty to Porn Charges

The Morning Call [Pennsylvania]
April 27, 2005

A Schuylkill County Catholic priest who was charged with having hundreds of child pornography photos, books, magazines, videotapes and DVDs at his home and a rental storage unit and with embezzling church money, pleaded guilty Wednesday in county court to three counts of sexual abuse of children, criminal use of a communication facility, theft and receiving stolen property.

But a judge delayed sentencing pending an evaluation of the Rev. Ronald J. Yarrosh.

Yarrosh, 57, was an assistant pastor at St. Ambrose Church in Schuylkill Haven and on the advisory board of the parish grade school when charged in April 2004.

Police searching Yarrosh's bedroom, library-sitting room and office at the rectory April 23 found a "voluminous" amount of pornography that included books and magazines with pictures of prepubescent children in various stages of dress, performing sex acts and in erotic poses, an affidavit says.

With a second search warrant, police seized 20 nudist colony magazines, 17 paperback books with images of nude children, and an accordion folder containing pictures of prepubescent boys and girls engaged in sex acts or erotic poses that had been printed from a computer.

Police say they also seized the parish computer's hard drive and found more than 250 images of children in various stages of dress and engaging in sexual acts and erotic poses. Yarrosh allegedly downloaded the material from the Internet.

 
 

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