Export piano repairman for Beaver County school pleads guilty to child porn charges
A 64-year-old Export man accused of using a Beaver County charter school's wireless Internet connection to try to meet someone he believed was a 14-year-old girl for sex will serve one to two years in prison under terms of a plea bargain.
Theodore Mamel, a piano repairman, is to be sentenced on Wednesday on charges of child pornography, dissemination of child pornography and criminal use of a communication facility.
Mamel on Monday entered guilty pleas to the charges, filed by Southwest Regional Police in February, in exchange for the sentencing recommendation. Prosecutors will drop two counts of unlawful contact with a minor, said Meghann Mikluscak, assistant district attorney, during the hearing before President Judge John F. Wagner Jr.
Police said Mamel sent pornography and child pornography to the person he believed was the teenager using wireless Internet connections. One of the connections was through a Beaver County charter school, Lincoln Park Center for the Performing Arts, where he worked as a piano repairman, police said.
The center suspended Mamel after his arrest.
Police arrested Mamel as he was headed to meet the person he thought was a Belle Vernon teenager, according to a police report. Police officers posed as the girl during a monthlong investigation.
Mamel told Wagner he believed the photographs of nude, underage girls were “doctored.”
He said he was unaware it was illegal to send the photos to others but has since learned otherwise.
According to police, on Jan. 8 Mamel posted a Craigslist advertisement seeking “girls that want to try some taboo sex,” according to an affidavit of probable cause.
On Jan. 9, a Southwest Regional police officer responded to the online ad, posing as a 14-year-old girl. From Jan. 14 to 17, Mamel spoke online with the officer and sent pornographic images of juveniles to the person he believed to be a teen, according to the affidavit.
On Feb. 10, Mamel said he would like to meet the “girl.”
The meeting was to take place on Feb. 12, but police instead stopped Mamel in the 200 block of Main Street.
Southwest Regional police Chief John Hartman asked Mamel if he was communicating with a young girl from Belle Vernon, and the defendant nodded his head and said, “Can I have one of your guns so I can just shoot myself?”
Mamel is to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday before Wagner. He is in the Fayette County jail in lieu of $250,000 bond.
Liz Zemba is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-601-2166 or lzemba@tribweb.com.
