Porn suspect accused of smashing hard drive
The instructor at several local colleges took out his hammer when the FBI called, authorities said.
A doctoral student at Temple University who taught history courses at several local colleges took a hammer to his hard drive when FBI agents investigating child pornography arrived at his apartment door, authorities said.
Roderick S. Vosburgh, 44, is charged with destroying records and computer records to obstruct a federal investigation. He has taught at La Salle University, Delaware County Community College and Camden County College.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter yesterday ordered a detention hearing for Monday.
Vosburgh is one of "several hundred" people suspected of trying to download child pornography during a 24-hour period last year in which the FBI set up a sting via an existing pornography Web site.
After tracing Vosburgh through his Internet account, FBI agents and Upper Providence police carrying a search warrant arrived at Vosburgh's apartment Tuesday, wary because they knew that he had about 20 guns registered in his name.
Authorities said the officers and agents knocked and left messages on his phone, asking him to open the door.
"The officers then heard movement inside the residence as well as unidentified sounds that they speculated to be the charging of a weapon and the loading of a magazine," according to an affidavit by FBI agent David Desy.
Vosburgh emerged 25 minutes later. Desy said he told agents that he had been in the bathroom.
Inside his apartment, Desy said, agents found a computer tower on top of the kitchen stove with its cover "unscrewed and removed," next to a screwdriver. They found a hammer nearby. The hard drive was missing, Desy said, and parts were found "bent and broken" in the kitchen trash can.
Desy said agents also found smashed pieces of nine portable hard drives, known as thumb drives. A 10th thumb drive was found in the toilet, agents said.
Agents also found "dozens of weapons, including an AK-47, shotguns, assault rifles, semi-automatic handguns, revolvers and cartridges strewn randomly throughout his residence," Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise S. Wolf said in a filing yesterday.
The Vosburgh arrest was one of several nationwide related to the FBI sting. One other local arrest in the case was a registered sex offender from Philadelphia, Robert Merz, who was charged with attempting to download child pornography.
Merz was released from state prison two years ago after serving a 15-year sentence for the rape of a minor, according to a government filing.
His lawyer, Assistant Federal Defender Dina Chavar, declined to comment because she had just been appointed to the case. Vosburgh's lawyer declined to comment.