Plea change expected for Butler County man charged with 101 counts of child porn

Guilty pleas to ‘a number’ of the charges now expected.

Two years after his indictment, a Madison Twp. man is expected to change his not guilty plea in October to some of the 101 counts of child pornography he is facing.

Trevor Fraley, 26, of Dickey Road, was scheduled to go to trial Tuesday in Butler County Common Pleas Court, but that trial was canceled and a plea and sentencing hearing was scheduled for Oct. 12, according to court records.

Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser said he expects Fraley to enter guilty pleas to “a number” of the charges in the indictment.

Fraley was indicted in November 2019 on multiple counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a child and illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance, all second-degree felonies.

Judge Michael Oster Jr. set bond at $500,000. As part of the bond, Oster also ordered that Fraley wear a GPS monitor, have no contact with children, including his own, have no internet access and report twice per week to pretrial services. He has been free on bond while awaiting trial.

In March 2020, defense attorney Chris Pagan filed a motion to suppress evidence, including items taken from a Middletown home on Crawford Street, cell phone, computers and other electronic devices.

Pagan argued some of the multiple search warrants were not properly signed by the magistrate and relied on an uncorroborated statement from a woman with a drug addiction and a case through Butler County Children Services.

A computer believed to belong to Fraley contained “a very large amount of child pornography — over 1,200 videos depicting children engaged in sexual activity, much of which has been duplicated by defendant’s backing up the videos from his phone to his computer. The most recent unidentified backup occurred on Oct. 29 (in 2019),” Assistant Butler County Prosecutor Kelly Heile said in court documents.

The motion also says some of the images allegedly traced to Fraley’s digital payment service include sex acts involving toddler-aged children. One of the images may have been taken at a previous residence shared by a witness and Fraley, according to Heile.

The judge denied most of the defense’s request to suppress the evidence.

About the Author