Fairfax County Police Watch: Child pornography charges filed against former police chief

A former Berks County police chief was charged Tuesday with child sexual abuse for allegedly possessing and sharing child pornography with an undercover police officer from his home computer in the Pennridge area of Bucks County.

Robert E. Geist, 44, of the 2600 block of Bedminster Road (Route 113) in Bedminster Township, was arraigned on one count each of child pornography, disseminating images or video depicting child sexual acts, criminal use of a communication facility and obstructing the administration of law.

He was released by District Judge Robert A. Schnell Jr. under a $25,000 recognizance bond.

Geist was hired in 2004 as a police officer in Brecknock Township, a small township with about 4,500 residents just south of Reading.

He was fired in October 2012 after serving as police chief for about 18 months after taking two lengthy leaves of absence for illness, according to reports from the Reading Eagle newspaper.

His firing was apparently unrelated to the criminal investigation.

According to the arrest affidavit:

New Britain Township police detective Cpl. Jeffrey A. Cummins began investigating Geist June 23 after he received 13 images from Geist through a peer-to-peer file sharing program. Seven of the images allegedly depicted child pornography, including a photograph of a nude girl estimated to be 15 years old standing in a hot tub in a sexually suggestive pose.

Another download took place between June 30 and July 1. Cummins alleges Geist sent him a video with the file name "6Yo babyj – Bedtime rape."

When Cummins and other police officers went to Geist's home to search for evidence, Geist's father was outside in the garage and announced in a loud voice that police were on the property. Police allege Geist immediately began running two file eraser programs on his computer.

A forensic examination of the computer, though, revealed the names of some files, including one that had ben previously sent to Cummins, according to the arrest papers.

— Tracy Jordan

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Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.