LONDONDERRY -- A former Londonderry Budget Committee member is scheduled to stand trial for possession of child pornography early next year.
Jury selection for the trial of Timothy Siekmann, 61, who lived at 89 Hovey Road, Londonderry at the time of the arrest, is scheduled for Feb. 18 at 8:30 p.m. at Rockingham Superior Court, 10 NH-125, Brentwood.
The final pretrial hearing is scheduled for Jan. 29 at 8:30 a.m.
Siekmann filed paperwork with the court waiving his right to a speedy trial in August.
He faces 15 counts of possession of child sexual abuse images and videos. According to a Londonderry police affidavit, all of the children depicted in the images and videos were female and approximately ages 2- to 9-years-old.
If found guilty, Siekmann could be sentenced to up to 20 years in federal prison.
Siekmann was arrested and arraigned in July of 2023 and entered a plea of not guilty on all 15 charges. He posted $2,500 cash bail and was released later that month.
He resigned from his position on the Budget Committee through a letter to Chairman Patrick Cassidy and Town Manager Michael Malaguti. The resignation was accepted by the committee at a special meeting Aug. 8, 2023.
The original tip was given to the Derry Police Department on Aug. 3, 2022, by a CyberTipline Report from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Data System. The tip showed that three files were uploaded via Bing Image Peer-to-Peer, a way for users to quickly search and access photographs.
Detective Scott Tompkins of the Derry police was able to locate the computer's IP address, and its communication services company, Fairpoint-Consolidated Communications.
He executed a search warrant for the documents and was able to locate a subscriber under the name "Tim Siecmenn," registered to the same address as Siekmann's home address, kicking the investigation over to the Londonderry Police Department.
Londonderry Detective Corey Ford executed a search warrant at Siekmann's address, taking several devices as evidence. When asked by Ford during the execution of the search warrant if he owned any computers, Siekmann indicated that his work laptop was in the den area, according to Ford's report.
Ford was able to confirm that the laptop was registered in Siekmann's name via the device's records.
The five videos and 10 images were allegedly downloaded to Siekmann's work computer, using a number of different technologies, like virtual machines, VPNs, and a more efficient type of physical hard drive, called a Solid State Drive.
Malaguti confirmed after his arrest that Siekmann had not been issued any devices from the town in his capacity as a Budget Committee member.