Social Worker Charged With Child Porn Possession, Fired

A state social worker who worked with foster children has been charged with multiple counts of possessing child pornography and has been fired from the post he held since 1988, state officials said Wednesday.

Pierce County Prosecutor John Ladenburg said Harry Pitcock, a social worker in Tacoma, was arrested and charged late last week with 40 felony counts of possession of child pornography.

Detectives conducting a search of Pitcock’s home last week found “over 300 sexually explicit Polaroid pictures of various-aged young males. They also recovered several apparently homemade video tapes of young males engaged in sexually explicit conduct,” according to papers filed in Superior Court by the Pierce County prosecutor’s office.

The papers said authorities believe the people depicted in the pictures were under 18 years of age.

State Patrol Lt. Ron O’Gwin said Pitcock was being held at the Pierce County Jail with bail set at $500,000.

In a hastily called news conference, state social services chief Lyle Quasim announced that Pitcock had been fired on Saturday after he “admitted to inappropriate intimate relationships with young adults” who previously had been in his foster care caseload.

In addition, Quasim said, one 22-year-old male who as an adolescent had been part of Pitcock’s caseload complained he had been sexually abused by Pitcock.

Quasim declined to provide details about the allegations, saying it could jeopardize the criminal investigation being conducted by the State Patrol and Pierce County prosecutor’s office.

Quasim said additional serious allegations against Pitcock are currently under criminal investigation.

Quasim said that on May 28, Pitcock’s bosses in Tacoma “received a written statement regarding allegations of sexual abuse by a foster care caseworker. The incidents were reported to have occurred 4-5 years earlier.”

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