At the time of his arrest last summer, Gregory Allen Horn Sr., 46, of 267 Champ Blvd., was already on probation for a prior offense of sexual abuse of children, to which he pleaded guilty in February 2004.

Horn served 10 months in jail for the parole violation, and Thursday, Judge Michael A. Georgelis sentenced Horn to time served to 2 years less a day in prison, plus 10 years' probation for felony possession of child pornography.

Horn was granted immediate parole, but was ordered to continue sex offender counseling.

East Hempfield Township Police detective Paul Fitzsimmons filed the charges against Horn in both cases. Fitzsimmons said he was pleased with the judge's sentence despite Horn's release from jail.

"He has messed up before," Fitzsimmons said of Horn. "And Judge Georgelis guaranteed that if he messes up again, he'll come back before him and be sentenced to 3 to 7 years in state prison."

According to an affidavit of probable cause filed by Fitzsimmons, the child pornography was discovered by Horn's probation officer, Christine Whiteside, during a visit to Horn's home on Aug. 27, 2004.

"During Whiteside's check, she found one picture on his computer of a young female (under the age of) 18, posing in front of a mirror with underpants on and exposed breasts," Fitzsimmons writes in his report. "As a result of this information, I prepared a search warrant to seize actor's computer "¦ ."

Horn cooperated with police during the execution of the warrant, Fitzsimmons writes.

"He led us to a room that had the same computer I had seized from his prior offense, a Compaq Presario," Fitzsimmons writes. "(Horn) voluntarily told us that was the computer the picture was on."

Horn was arrested and taken, along with the computer, to the police station.

"On the way, actor made several statements without inducement, stating it started with downloading adult images, and sooner or later, he moved to younger girls," Fitzsimmons writes in the complaint. "He said that he used the picture as wallpaper for a time, and said he needs help. This led me to suspect the picture was set as wallpaper for the sexual gratification of actor."

The computer was sent to the state attorney general's office for inspection, and the pornographic image was subsequently found, Fitzsimmons writes.

"(The investigator) said that two programs had been installed on the computer designed to erase files and downloads from the hard drive," Fitzsimmons writes in the complaint. "One of these programs was run at 7:30 a.m., the day we served the search warrant."

Horn was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Todd Kriner and defended by attorney Daniel Kaye of the Public Defender's Office.

Besides the jail time and probation, Horn also was ordered to pay a $300 fine plus costs of prosecution.

Justin Quinn's e-mail address is jquinn@lnpnews.com