HENRICO, Va. -- A former Henrico County youth coach has been busted and accused of collecting child porn. FBI agents swarmed Noland Harper's home, located just off Edinborough Square in Henrico, in late January.
"Two dozen (FBI agents) came with the search warrant and then they came five days later and arrested him," recalled Harper's neighbors Dick and Anne Bell.
Detectives said a tip 2,300 miles away in Las Vegas, claimed Harper was operating a child pornography website. It started when a Nevada officer pulled over a man referred to as W.T., who had two boys in the vehicle. That man exchanged information with police, and of the three numbers he gave out, one matched Harper's phone here in Richmond.
"It's just terrible," Anne Bell said.
It was just as difficult when the Bell's learned their 60-year-old neighbor was in the middle of uploading child porn on his bedroom computer, at the time detectives arrived at his door.
During the search, Harper told investigators he started collecting child pornography after he stopped coaching youth sports approximately 10 years ago, according to court documents. The documents also indicated, Harper said he missed the physical company of young children and that he was sexually attracted to young boys. He also said he "coached for 34 years, all of a sudden they were gone and he has no wife."
Former players at Tuckahoe Little League in Henrico's West End recalled Harper as a coach for the league in the 1980s.
"It was just unbelievable that something like this could happen in our neighborhood," Dick and Anne Bell said.
More than a month after Harper's arrest and things have returned to normal in the Henrico community where Harper lives. However, neighbors said what happened stands as a prime example that you never truly know what's happening behind closed doors.
"We knew he was a loner, but we never thought anything like this," said Anne Bell.
"It is absolutely imperative that we arrest the problem where it is," Ian Danielson with the Greater Richmond SCAN--child advocacy center said.
Danielson isn't connected to the Harper case, but said viewing child porn is never a victimless crime.
"Some people buy into the myth that the perpetrator of internet crimes is just looking at images, when they are actually looking at a child who has been hurt and very, very traumatized," Danielson said.
According to the affidavit obtained by CBS 6, Noland Harper admitted to leaving the Commonwealth and flying to "California three times in the past year to meet up with underage boys."
Stay with CBS 6, for more on this developing story.
