Child porn indictment against ex-Springfield fire official dismissed

A New Jersey Superior Court judge has dismissed an indictment against a former Springfield Fire Department official who was accused in June 2014 of distributing child pornography from his computer.

Charges against Frank Fiorelli, 64, of Springfield, were dismissed by Judge Joseph Donohue. In his decision, the judge said "prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory information to the grand jury that handed up the charges," according to an article on NJ.com.

According to the judge's ruling, prosecutors from the NJ Attorney General's withheld repeated statements made my Fiorelli regarding his alleged ignorance of a file-sharing program.

On June 11, 2014, Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that Fiorelli was one of three men indicted for allegedly distributing child pornography over the Internet. His apprehension was part of an effort called “Operation Ever Vigilant.” They had been arrested in two separate child pornography sweeps conducted by the New Jersey State Police, the Division of Criminal Justice, the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and federal partners.

According to NJ.com, Fiorelli told police he was unaware that the filed from the program he was using would end up being distributed from his computer to others who were using the same program. While he admitted to searching for porn on the internet, he said he only saw child pornography pop up occasionally on the computer he was using.

Donohue's statement indicated that the prosecutor's use of only part of the Springfield man's statements, Donohue said, "was giving the grand jury a 'half truth' that represented a distortion of the facts," NJ.com reported.

Fiorelli was the cpatain of the Springfield Fire Department until his retirement in 2012, the year before the initial indictment.