DELAWARE – Authorities say a former Delaware County deputy who twice ran for sheriff has been charged with having child pornography on his computer.
Federal prosecutors say Mark Wolfe of Sunbury surrendered to the U.S. Marshals Service Monday.
Wolfe, 50, was a Delaware County deputy for three years in the 1990s and was interim county sheriff for a week in 2007, but hasn’t worked there since then. He ran unsuccessfully for county sheriff there in 2000 and 2004.
According to a statement from the office of current Delaware County Sheriff Russell Martin, Wolfe served as interim sheriff for five days, between the resignation of Al Myers and the appointment of Walter Davis.
“Mr. Wolfe’s tenure at the Sheriff’s Office was brief and it has been nearly nine years since he was associated with this office. He has had no association with the Delaware County Sheriff’s office since his removal in 2007,” Martin said.
Wolfe also had been the police chief of the village of Edison in Morrow County. His attorney said he will fight the charges.
Prosecutors say a shared file containing child pornography was traced to his IP address, and a search on July 31 turned up 486 videos and 203 images of child pornography. Some of the videos showed children as young as eight-to-10 months old being sexually exploited.
Additional analysis of the computer revealed Skype chat messages between Wolfe and several other individuals, in which Wolfe allegedly claimed to have previously engaged in sex acts with minors and stated that his favorite age is five to ten years old, prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney Carter Stewart said the case is being brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative led by the U.S. Attorneys’ offices, to combat online exploitation and abuse of children. Federal, state and local authorities combine their resources to catch suspects and identify and rescue victims, Stewart said.
The investigation was spearheaded by the FBI Columbus Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes officers from police departments in Westerville, Reynoldsburg and Powell.