Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele announced that Brian Groo, 25, of Horsham, was sentenced yesterday to 100-200 years plus three years of probation for sexually assaulting a 10-month-old infant, as well as filming the act and then disseminating the material.
The sentence consists of four consecutive mandatory 25-year prison terms due to prior sexual predator convictions, DA Steele said. Groo pled guilty to multiple felony charges on July 18, including Rape of a Child, Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse With a Child, Human Trafficking, Disseminating Photos/Film of Child Sex Acts and related charges.
“Having served jail time did not stop you. Sex offender treatment did not stop you,” said Judge Wendy G. Rothstein. “You are a danger to the public. You escalated your conduct. Now, you didn’t just download child pornography, you created it.”
In December 2019, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office, Abington Township Police Chief Patrick Molloy and the Pennsylvania Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force announced Groo’s arrest. He was charged with 167 felony counts related to distributing and possessing child pornography.
A related investigation began on September 17, 2019, when an ICAC investigator was assigned to review a CyberTip received from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. The tip reported that a customer of the file hosting service Dropbox had uploaded a video and a still photo file that depicted sex acts between an adult and a child who appeared to be 10 years old.
The investigation traced the computer IP address first to a residence in the Willow Grove (Upper Moreland Township), then after the family moved to the 200 block of Maple Avenue in Horsham, where Groo was living.
A search warrant was executed on October 10, 2019, by Horsham Township Police and Montgomery County ICAC Task Force members. The defendant’s cell phone was seized, and a forensic examination found more than 499 images depicting children under the age of 18 years old engaging in sexual acts and/or poses and were determined to be child pornography. The investigation also executed a search warrant on the defendant’s Dropbox account, which found 37 image files and 32 video files that were also depicting children pornography, DA Steele said.
Following his arrest, Groo was charged with 65 second-degree felony counts of dissemination of child pornography, 100 second-degree felony counts of possessing child pornography, as well as criminal use of a communications facility.
Groo was arrested again in October 2024 when county detectives received a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding videos of child sexual abuse material that had been uploaded and shared by an online user of the messaging platform Kik.
The DA’s report is below:
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Photo: Montco DA