Maryland mayor arrested, faces charges of more than 50 counts of child porn-related crimes

(The AEGIS Alliance) – Patrick Wojahn, the 47-year-old mayor of a college town in Maryland named College Park, was arrested this week following the discovery of numerous videos and photographs of child pornography.

On February 17, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted the Prince George’s County Police Department regarding a social media account that allegedly distributed child pornographic material in January.

Further investigation led detectives to discover that Patrick Wojahn was managing the account. Subsequently, detectives executed a search warrant on February 28 at Wojahn’s residence in College Park, which houses the University of Maryland, and discovered multiple electronic devices, including cellphones, a tablet, a computer, and a storage device.

On March 2, Wojahn was taken into custody by the police and charged with 40 counts of possessing child-exploitative material and 16 counts of distributing child-exploitative material. In a statement released by the College Park City Council, it was announced that Wojahn had resigned from his position as mayor late Wednesday night, effective immediately. Wojahn had been the mayor of College Park since 2015 and had been a member of the city council since 2007.

In his resignation letter, Wojahn acknowledged that serving as mayor had been a “profound honor” but cited his ongoing cooperation with the police investigation as his reason for stepping down. He stated that his resignation was “in the best interests of our community” and that he was “stepping away to deal with [his] own mental health.” Wojahn requested that people keep him and his family in their thoughts and prayers.

The College Park City Council, in a statement released on March 2, expressed shock and dismay at the news. They stated that the revelations that had come to light during the investigation were a complete surprise to them.

Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.