Burns Harbor man faces child porn charges




Harold A. Harvey

Harold A. Harvey

Cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led to the arrest of a Burns Harbor man on five felony counts of possession of child pornography, court documents state.

Harold A. Harvey, 56, of the 300 block of Maple Lane, was taken into custody on May 6 by members of the Burns Harbor and Porter police departments, according to a release from Sgt. Glen Fifield, public information officer for the Lowell Post of the Indiana State Police.

Harvey’s arrest was the result of a lengthy investigation conducted by detectives assigned to ISP’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and started with a cyber tip received in September 2021 regarding activities on a social media count associated with Harvey, Fifield said.

“A total of 14 additional tips were received over the next few months that were all found to be associated with other social media accounts linked to Mr. Harvey,” Fifield said, adding a search warrant was executed at Harvey’s residence in March and additional evidence was discovered.

All five counts are Level 5 felonies for possession of child pornography, according to court documents. Those involve images of girls believed to be age 10 and younger.

Search warrants served to Facebook related to two known accounts held by Harvey provided pictures, videos and chat logs related to apparent child pornography, including “a total of 897 videos of suspected child pornography. Due to the vast volume of files, not all were viewed,” court documents said.

“Communications with other users via Facebook Messenger indicated that Harold Harvey often requests from as well as offers child pornography to others,” documents said, offering randomly selected samples of chat communications, including, “Do you like very young porn?”

Harvey remained in Porter County Jail pending an initial hearing Wednesday afternoon before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer.

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