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A Menlo Park physician who is affiliated with Stanford Cancer Center has been charged with possession of child pornography, according to a federal complaint in U.S. district court in San Francisco.
Joseph Andrew Mollick, 58, is a hematologist-oncologist who is also affiliated with Dominican Hospital and University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, among others. He faces the child pornography charge after an image he allegedly uploaded to a Canadian smartphone app was flagged by the company.
He allegedly uploaded the image onto the Kik smartphone messaging app on Aug. 30, 2019. Kik uses Microsoft’s PhotoDNA technology, which immediately scans uploaded images to flag suspected child pornography. The company’s law enforcement team alerted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which forwarded the materials to the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations office.
An investigator obtained a federal search warrant on Aug. 13, 2020, after linking an internet provider (IP) address to Mollick. The investigation uncovered more than 2,000 images and videos of child pornography and more than 800 files of child erotica through Mollick’s Apple iCloud account, according to the federal complaint. The complaint was filed on July 13 and was unsealed by the court on Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in San Francisco.
Mollick appeared in federal court on Friday and was released on $50,000 bail. If he is convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
