Lewisburg Man Charged in Child Porn Case Dies at Philadelphia Detention Center

Rocco Scolamacchia Jr., 49, of Lewisburg, a former emergency room nurse at WellSpan Evangelical Community Hospital, died Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. He was nine days into pretrial custody on a federal child pornography conspiracy charge when staff discovered him at 11:10 a.m. on March 21.

Employees began life-saving measures until he could be transported by EMS to a local hospital, but once he arrived, he was pronounced dead. Bureau of Prisons officials did not provide a cause of death, and no autopsy results have been released.

Scolamacchia had been at the detention center since March 12 under pretrial status, ordered held after U.S. Magistrate Judge Pamela Carlos granted prosecutors' motion for pretrial detention. He faced one count of conspiracy to receive and distribute child pornography, a charge filed by FBI Special Agent Jessica Prendergast in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The federal indictment, filed March 11, outlined allegations spanning years. Scolamacchia allegedly discussed his sexual interest in children with like-minded associates online and received child sexual abuse material for more than three years. In December 2023, he joined an online forum called The Den of Depravity, which encouraged its members to abuse children to whom they had access and to record those incidents for distribution on the internet. The group had approximately 30 members who traded hundreds of files of child pornography, including material depicting infants, toddlers and other prepubescent children, the FBI said.

Scolamacchia allegedly used the online alias "crown_of_thorns" and went by the first name "Joe" to conceal his identity. After a cooperating defendant agreed to plead guilty, she provided investigators with information that helped identify Scolamacchia as one of the group's members. She told the FBI she and her partner had actually met "Joe" in person years before the group was created, when he visited their home in Leesport, and she later picked Scolamacchia's face out of a photo lineup.

He arranged to meet with an undercover federal agent posing as a woman who would allow him to have sexual encounters with a pre-teen foster daughter, and met with others to build an in-person pedophile network. During recorded conversations with the undercover FBI agent going back to 2023, Scolamacchia allegedly discussed arranging a meeting to sexually abuse a child he believed to be the agent's 10-year-old foster daughter. As recently as September of last year, investigators say he was still pursuing that meeting, noting that his wife had recently left him and he now had more free time.

His position at Evangelical Community Hospital drew pointed attention from prosecutors. "At the time of his arrest, the defendant was employed as an emergency room nurse at Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, with access to a vulnerable population, including children who may need urgent medical attention," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kelly Harrell and David Metcalf wrote in court documents. "While communicating with The Den of Depravity and its founders, the defendant also discussed his willingness to abuse his employment position, offering to provide 'sterile needles' from the hospital to the group's founders, who he had met in person and who were active drug users."

WellSpan did not wait for the legal process to conclude. "The safety of our patients is our top priority," WellSpan said. "This individual has been terminated from our organization, and this matter is being handled by law enforcement."

Scolamacchia faced a maximum possible penalty of 20 years' imprisonment, with a five-year mandatory minimum term, five years up to a lifetime of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. With his death on March 21, the federal case against him is expected to be dismissed. The cause of his death remains under investigation.