A federal jury has convicted a 46-year-old Gates County man of transporting and possessing child pornography after FBI agents traced a trove of illegal material shared through BitTorrent to his room at a Fayetteville motel. Myron Curtis Pelech, also known as Ping Pelech, now faces a potential sentence of 15 to 40 years in prison for transporting the material and 10 to 20 years for possessing it.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, investigators traced the BitTorrent activity to Pelech's room at the Regency Inn in Fayetteville, where FBI agents executed a search warrant. BitTorrent is a decentralized file-sharing network that lets users share files directly rather than through a central server, making it a common tool investigators track when hunting down shared illegal material. As reported by WAVY.com, agents recovered a concealed cell phone and tablet hidden beneath a television stand inside the room.
What Investigators Found on the Devices
A forensic examination of the cell phone revealed a saved screenshot of a website dedicated to child sexual exploitation, per the same account. The tablet, meanwhile, contained more than 150 videos and 200 images of child sexual abuse material. Federal prosecutors say the material depicted severe sexual exploitation of young children.
This was not Pelech's first brush with this kind of charge. He was convicted in 2016 of receiving child pornography in the Eastern District of North Carolina, federal prosecutors say, and he was still on supervised release from that conviction when agents uncovered the new evidence. Prosecutors say Pelech had been out of prison for less than one year when federal investigators found similar criminal activity.
Prosecutors Vow No Tolerance
U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said his office would not tolerate the exploitation of vulnerable children. “This spider will only spin his web behind cold steel bars,” Boyle said, underscoring the office's determination to keep Pelech off the streets. U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan accepted the jury's verdict, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, though no sentencing date has been announced.
The FBI investigated the case that led to Pelech's conviction. While sentencing guidelines for cases involving receipt of child pornography have drawn scrutiny nationally — the U.S. Sentencing Commission notes that the average sentence for individuals convicted of receiving child pornography was 114 months, with 86% of those convicted of an offense carrying a five-year mandatory minimum — those figures concern a different offense category and do not establish what sentence Pelech will ultimately receive for his transport and possession convictions.
