Dr. Paul Mosher, vice provost and director of libraries, resigned from the University in April following an eight-month investigation by the Philadelphia Police Department’s special victims unit. He had allegedly downloaded more than 2,000 images of child pornography from Internet sources onto his laptop computer and paid for them with a credit card. A preliminary hearing in April was postponed until June 26, after the Gazette went to press.
The investigation began last August, when Mosher reportedly took his broken laptop to a repair shop, where employees found the images in his files. They reported the finding to University Police, who then turned the information over to Philadelphia Police, as required by law.
“The Philadelphia Police conducted a careful investigation over an extended period and the University was not involved in the investigation,” said Lori Doyle, vice president for University communications. The special victims unit seized Mosher’s computer from his office in Van Pelt Library on April 11, and Penn quickly placed him on administrative leave. By April 17, he had resigned from his post, and on April 21, he turned himself in to Philadelphia Police. Bail was set at $15,000.