Adams County man falls through attic floor in attempt to flee police on child porn charges

A Menallen Township man fell through his attic floor and was tased after he attempted to flee police who were serving him a child pornography search warrant.

Seth Benjamin Dittmar, 29, of the 500 block of Bendersville Wenksville Road, was charged on July 3 with child pornography and criminal use of a communication facility, according to an affidavit filed with District Judge Mark Beauchat.

On July 17, Dittmar was additionally charged with flight to avoid apprehension, resisting arrest, recklessly endangering anther person and operating a vehicle without an ignition interlock.

Read:Penn Township man found with 55 images of child sexual abuse, police say

Read:Man charged for sexually assaulting girl for three years, police say

In April Beyer got a search warrant for Facebook, after Facebook reported the images, for the content of the profile that was reported to have been sharing child pornography. 

Beyer found 21 images of child sexual abuse that were uploaded from a Facebook profile with the user name 'Seth Dittmar' to a second Facebook profile with the same user name, police said in the affidavit.

The images were uploaded from December 2018 to December 2019 and were the first thing sent to Dittmar's new Facebook profile.

Dittmar was interviewed in May and admitted he was the person involved in the Facebook Messenger conversations and that no one else had access to his passwords or phone.

He also said that he created the new profile after Facebook had deactivated his old one.

In July, Beyer received a search warrant for Dittmar's old Facebook account, which had several of the images of child sexual abuse and showed his IP address to be located at his residence, police said in the affidavit.

On July 9, Pennsylvania State Police assisted Adams County Sheriff's Office to serve a child pornography search warrant at Dittmar's home.

They began to search the home for Dittmar, who was hiding in the attic underneath insulation. He fell through the attic floor as he attempted to get away from police, the affidavit states.

Dittmar landed on the first floor of the home and exited through a window. Police gave verbal commands before deploying a taser, but he got away after two taser deployments.

Another officer deployed their taser for a total of three times, but Dittmar continued to run into the woods. It is unknown if the second and third taser made contact with Dittmar, police said in the affidavit.

Police continued to chase Dittmar, who ran for about 100 yards before he was taken into custody.

One deputy sustained a laceration to his arm and an injury to his hip during the pursuit. He was taken to Gettysburg Hospital for further evaluation.

Dittmar admitted that he had driven to the residence earlier in the day on July 9 and was then taken to Adams County prison, the affidavit states. 

He is currently being held in lieu of $50,000 bail for the child pornography charges and has a formal arraignment scheduled for Aug. 22, according to online court documents.

Dittmar has a formal arraignment scheduled for his second set of charges also on Aug. 22.

His attorney could not be reached for comment.