Child porn lands Mt. Lebanon developer in prison
A prominent South Hills developer was sentenced to nearly four years in prison and must register as a sex offender for possessing child pornography, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Alan N. Bloch sentenced Felix Caste, 69, of Mt. Lebanon, to 46 months in prison and supervised release for life, and ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine.
Caste pleaded guilty last month to one count of possessing child pornography. Workers installing fiber-optic cables discovered a stash of compact discs depicting minors engaged in sex acts hidden in the basement ceiling of Caste's home.
Caste, the retired president of Caste Village Shoppes in Whitehall, said yesterday his actions were vile and wrong.
"I'm very ashamed of myself for ever looking at photographs of those children," he said.
Friends and relatives packed the Downtown courtroom. Many shook their heads as the sentence was read, and some wiped tears from their eyes. Bloch said he received 131 letters on Caste's behalf.
F. Lynn Foltz, a Mt. Lebanon real estate developer, said he has known Caste for 35 years and found the child pornography charge to be out of character for his friend and business associate.
"Frankly, I was devastated," Foltz said. "It was a gross misjudgment on his part, and it was stupid."
The men and other associates have started a foundation to build free homes in Western Pennsylvania for American troops injured in war. A similar organization in Boston broke from the local development group after Caste pleaded guilty, Foltz said.
Caste's lawyers said their client was under stress from caring for his wife, who died last year.
Bloch rejected the lawyers' argument that Caste should be sentenced to parole or home arrest. They cited his charitable contributions and a psychiatric expert's report saying Caste never molested a child and is unlikely to repeat his crime.
Wealthy people are expected to give more back to the community, Bloch said, noting that Caste was not charged with molesting children -- something the judge said would have added prison time.
"Child pornography is a serious offense and a growing concern," Bloch said. "Even if the defendant has had no direct, inappropriate contact with children, he has indeed victimized children."
Bloch referred to a statistic showing that child pornography on the Internet has increased 1,500 percent since 1997, and said behavior such as Caste's "fuels a market that leads to the victimization of even more children to feed the demand."
