Shawn C. Fedele, an assistant girls basketball coach last year at East Bridgewater High School, told state police he may have e-mailed photos of children, but none were sexual, the court papers note.
Fedele initially denied sending any photos when quizzed by state Trooper Frank Driscoll, but said, when asked again, “Maybe, but not sexual photos but photos which ‘did contain young naked children,’” according to court papers.
Fedele, 25, of 258 Laurel St., East Bridgewater, was indicted by a Plymouth County grand jury on nine counts of child pornography and distribution of child pornography.
Fedele, who has also worked at his family’s candy store in Pembroke, pleaded not guilty to the charges in Brockton Superior Court this week.
He is free after posting $1,000 bail.
Attempts to reach his attorney Wednesday and Thursday were unsuccessful. Attempts to reach Fedele were also unsuccessful.
Fedele served as an assistant girls basketball coach until the end of February of this year.
He was not reappointed to the job.
The investigation was launched after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children notified state police it had received a tip that someone in the area was downloading child pornography.
One of those photos involved in that initial tip depicted a young girl, age 12 to 14, nude on a bed in a sexually explicit pose, according to court records.
A second photo showed two naked prepubescent girls sitting on a coffee table, according to paperwork filed in court.
Driscoll, as part of the investigation, tracked down the identity of the e-mail account holder and then obtained a search warrant for the suspect’s home and computers Feb. 29.
Police seized computers from the home and later examined the hard drive.
A search of one hard drive revealed about 34 images of suspected child pornography, according to the court papers.
Police interviewed Fedele at his home at the time of the search and asked him about photos depicting children.
“When Shawn was asked if he had a curiosity for children he knew to be underage he stated ‘yes.’ Mr. Fedele stated it started just a few months ago,” Driscoll noted in an affidavit filed to support the charges.
Fedele said he was curious about child porn and had joined chat rooms on AOL that were called “young or something,” according to court paperwork.
Fedele told police he went into one of the chat rooms “two or three times” in December, but could not remember sending photos of underage girls to someone else.
He admitted, according to the report filed in court, to using a file sharing program to find child pornography using the search terms “underage, teen, preteen.”
Fedele, according to the report, said he only opened three files, but they “were not child porn.”
Fedele said he uninstalled the program he used the next day.
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