WARREN - A Weathersfield man who has been held in jail since his arrest in January on child rape charges pleaded not guilty Thursday to a 26-count additional indictment that authorities say links him to child pornography found on his home computer.
Charles M. Bland, 59, of 12th Street, remains behind bars in lieu of $250,000 bond pending a pre-trial Aug. 16.
A grand jury returned the latest charges in a special report Thursday that accuses Bland of possessing 100 pornographic images, some of them captured with a camera and depicting children as young as 5 within the Suburban Trailer Park and posed in a ''provocative and sexualized fashion,'' according to a motion filed by an assistant prosecutor to join the rape and the pornography charges together as one case.
In January, Bland was secretly indicted on one count of rape of a 10-year-old girl. That charge carries a potential life sentence.
Three other counts of rape and two counts of gross sexual imposition pertain to a 14-year-old girl who was attacked last February.
Those girls and others from the mobile home park - some younger - are shown via the computer ''being forced to engage in virtually every type of sex act known to man,'' according to the document filed by assistant county prosecutor Gabe Wildman.
Wildman points out that Bland contacted a woman who lives in the park and wanted her to retrieve personal items, including his computer. Instead the woman turned the computer over to Weathersfield police who had state forensic experts retrieve information to be used as evidence.
''The defendant lured these children into his home, groomed them, raped them and molested them and then kept detailed trophies in the form of images and video on his computer,'' Wildman's motion states.
Wildman accused Bland of befriending the children by saying he would tutor them, read them the Bible and entice them with educational science experiments.