About The Tribune-Review

The Tribune-Review can be reached via e-mail or at 412-321-6460.
Contact Us | Video | RSS | Mobile

Dr. Balazs Tarnai, assistant professor of special education at Seton Hill University, was charged with possessing child pornography.

Daily Photo Galleries

Tuesday - June 18, 2013

Monday - June 17, 2013

Sunday - June 16, 2013

A former Seton Hill professor who pleaded guilty to producing child pornography will spend 15 years in prison and the rest of his life on probation, U.S. District Judge David Cercone ruled Wednesday.

Balazs Tarnai, 36, of Unity, admitted to ordering DVDs of child pornography from a Los Angeles-based mail-order company and to secretly recording four boys — ages 5, 10, 12 and 13 — while they were using two bathrooms in his home.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Lieber Smolar said police examined Tarnai's computer files and found thousands of images and videos of young boys engaged in sexual acts.

The police found 12 homemade videos and 26 pictures of the four boys on Tarnai's computer, she said.

Tarnai, a Hungarian national who was in the country on a work visa, was sentenced as part of a plea bargain. He was immediately suspended and was later fired by the university on Nov. 28, 2011.

According to Smolar, on Feb. 9, 2011, Tarnai, who lived alone, ordered a DVD and a free preview reel of child pornography online from a fictitious company set up by law enforcement officials as part of an undercover operation targeting individuals who previously purchased material considered child pornography.

Brian Bowling and Paul Peirce are staff writers for Trib Total Media.

1. Former president of Derry Area Football Boosters Club charged with stealing $27,000 from group
2. Pagan’s lawyer seeks info
3. Plan for loft apartments receives approval
4. Library aide quits in wake of charges
5. Latrobe officials OK $60K project aimed at allowing creek to flow freely
6. Vandergrift man’s insufficient-evidence argument rejected in death of infant
7. Crews working on roads in Mt. Pleasant Township
8. Franklin Regional ends decade of tax increases
9. Franklin Regional board to weigh reporters’ objections to meeting
10. Greater Latrobe board to consider tax hike
11. Mt. Pleasant district has superintendent candidate

Subscribe today! Click here for our subscription offers.