Paul Mosher, vice provost and director of libraries at the University of Pennsylvania, resigned April 17. The Philadelphia Daily News reported the next day that Mosher was expected to surrender to sex-crimes detectives on child pornography charges.
Investigators allege that Mosher downloaded more than 2,000 images of child pornography over the Internet at the Van Pelt Library on the Penn campus and paid for them with his credit card. The Daily News quoted a police source as saying detectives were reviewing information stored on a library computer used by Mosher that was confiscated late last week.
Mosher could not be reached for comment, but Penn spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman confirmed for American Libraries that Mosher had resigned and that the university was aware that he was the subject of an investigation by the police.
Possession of child pornography is a felony that carries a three-to-seven-year jail sentence.
Posted April 21, 2003.