Hatboro Police Department Employee Charged With Child Pornography

HATBORO, PA —A Hatboro Borough Police Department civilian employee has been arrested and charged with distributing child pornography on a social media platform, federal authorities said.

Douglas Penglase, 37, of Hatboro, was charged by criminal complaint with one count of distribution and attempted distribution of child pornography, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced.

Penglase appeared in court before Judge Lynne A. Sitarski on Tuesday. If convicted, he would face up to 20 years in prison.

"The Hatboro Police Department was advised by federal and county law enforcement agencies that a civilian employee of the borough’s police department has been investigated and arrested for alleged distribution of child pornography," Hatboro Police said in a statement Wednesday. "The police department takes such events very seriously."

Hatboro Police said there are no indications that any borough-owned computers or IT systems were involved.

Hatboro Police Chief Mark Ruegg said that Penglase was a police operations clerk, which is a civilian administrative role.

After reviewing the information which has been provided by law enforcement personnel, the employee is no longer employed by the borough, police said.

As detailed in the criminal complaint, on May 27, 2024, the social media platform Kik reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that one of its users was transmitting files depicting child pornography (hereafter referred to as Child Sex Abuse Material or CSAM).

NCMEC flagged 50 files as CSAM, specifically, depictions of prepubescent female minor children between the approximate ages of 8-12 years engaged in sexual activities with adults.

The contents of the Kik account were obtained by law enforcement via a search warrant, and a review of the contents revealed almost 300 files containing CSAM. The search warrant return also included more than 1,100 messages between that target and other Kik users, federal authorities said.

The criminal complaint alleges that the defendant was one of the other users involved in chatting about, and trading, CSAM, with the original Kik user and that Penglase distributed nine CSAM videos each.

The complaint further alleges that law enforcement also obtained the contents of the Kik account belonging to the defendant. A review of the account revealed about 780 files containing CSAM.