A 60-year-old Scranton man is facing 5,000 felony counts of possessing child sexual abuse material after investigators say a tip traced an online account to his North Sixth Avenue home. James Dansereau was arraigned Wednesday before District Judge Christopher Szewczyk and remains in Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $200,000 bail, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday morning, Nov. 4.
A Cybertip Sets the Investigation in Motion
Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher announced the charges, according to the Scranton Times-Tribune, saying the case against the registered sex offender began with a cybertip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about material uploaded to an online account. Investigators with the Lackawanna County District Attorney's Office Special Victims Unit identified Dansereau as the account holder and traced the activity back to his residence, the newspaper reported.
That tip eventually pointed detectives toward Dansereau and set off a string of searches over two days in late October.
Devices Seized at a Parole Office and a Storage Unit
Detectives Jack Kane and Sheryl Turner met with Dansereau at the state parole office on Oct. 21, where they seized a cell phone and thumb drive from him, per the Times-Tribune's account. The following day, investigators executed a search warrant at a storage unit associated with Dansereau and seized a cellphone and hard drive from the location.
A separate report from 28/22 News states that Dansereau was initially arrested and charged with child sexual abuse material offenses on Oct. 21, and that a 6-terabyte hard drive seized during the investigation contained more than 5,000 files.
A 2020 Case and an Alleged Pattern
Dansereau was previously arrested in 2020 on similar allegations and has been registered as a Tier I offender on the Megan's Law list since his 2022 release from prison, the Times-Tribune reported. Investigators said Dansereau remained on state parole. According to 28/22 News, court documents state that he continued to view child sexual abuse material since that 2020 arrest.
Gallagher, quoted by the Times-Tribune, said “each file represents a real child who was abused, and viewing or sharing the images victimizes that child again.” He added that the Special Victims Unit “works these cases daily to protect children in Lackawanna County and northeastern Pennsylvania,” and warned that people “cannot hide behind a screen, thumb drive, or storage unit.”
Part of a Broader Pattern of Local Cases
Dansereau's arrest follows another Scranton case the Times-Tribune covered in August, when detectives said a 37-year-old man, James Michael Osborne, had viewed child sexual abuse material for nearly a decade. Osborne was charged with four counts of possessing child sexual abuse material and one count of criminal use of a communication facility, and he remained in Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $25,000 bail at the time, with a preliminary hearing set for Aug. 31.
Pennsylvania law lists Title 18, Section 6312 as governing the “Sexual abuse of children,” according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. No plea, conviction, or response from Dansereau or an attorney representing him has been reported.
