University Times

A UPMC radiologist was arrested last week and charged with propositioning via the Internet an undercover agent posing as a 13-year-old girl, according to documents released by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office.

Kenneth James Tolman, 49, a graduate medical resident at UPMC who was training in Pitt’s Department of Radiology, is charged with three counts of unlawful contact with a minor and three counts of criminal use of a computer. The charges are third-degree felonies that each are punishable by up to seven years in prison and a fine of $15,000.

According to the April 27 criminal complaint, on Dec. 5, 2006, Tolman of Ross Township used an Internet chat room to make contact with an agent from the attorney general’s Child Predator Unit, who was using the online profile of a 13-year-old girl.

The criminal charges allege that Tolman asked the girl for a photo and proceeded to describe sex acts he wished to perform. Tolman, the complaint also alleges, activated an Internet web camera, which he used to send sexual images of himself.

Tolman is being held in the Allegheny County Jail in lieu of $200,000 cash bail. He also was ordered to undergo a behavioral evaluation, prohibited from any unsupervised contact with minors and barred from using the Internet, Attorney General Tom Corbett stated.

A preliminary hearing was held yesterday, May 2, before Magisterial District Judge Richard G. Opiela. That hearing will be continued on May 9.

—Peter Hart