J-A01026-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

JOSEPH H. CAMBURN III, 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 1967 EDA 2022

Appeal from the Order Entered July 19, 2022

In the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-09-CR-0002912-2021

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., NICHOLS, J., and McCAFFERY, J.

MEMORANDUM BY NICHOLS, J.: FILED MAY 08, 2023

Appellant Joseph H. Camburn III1 appeals from the judgment of 

sentence imposed after he pled guilty to possessing child pornography and 

criminal use of a communication facility.2 Appellant argues that the trial court 

erred in determining that he was a sexually violent predator (SVP). Following 

our review, we affirm on the basis of the trial court opinion.

The trial court summarized the underlying facts of this matter as follows:

This case arises out of a report to law enforcement from Twitter 

that a certain user had uploaded numerous images of sexual 

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1 We note that although Appellant listed his name as “Joseph Camburn” on 

the notice of appeal, the trial court docket includes Appellant’s full name, 

“Joseph H. Camburn III.” Therefore, we have amended the caption to reflect 

Appellant’s name as it was listed on the trial court’s docket. See Pa.R.A.P. 

904(b)(1) (stating that “[t]he parties shall be stated in the caption as they 

appeared on the record of the trial court at the time the appeal was taken”).

2 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 6312(d) and 7512(a), respectively. 
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exploitative material of children using the Twitter platform on or 

about January 28, 2021. Through investigation, Detective Dante 

Montella of the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office was able to 

identify Appellant as the account holder and made contact with 

him on March 19, 2021. At this time, Detective Montella took 

possession of Appellant’s cell phone, Appellant confirmed that the 

Twitter account in question, “Countryboy4110,” was his, provided 

the detective with his cell phone number, and admitted to 

possessing child pornography.

Trial Ct. Op., 9/20/22, at 1.

On December 3, 2021, Appellant entered an open guilty plea to

possessing child pornography and criminal use of a communication facility. 

The trial court deferred sentencing for the Sexual Offenders Assessment Board 

(SOAB) to determine whether Appellant was an SVP. On July 19, 2022, the 

trial court conducted an SVP hearing. At the hearing, the Commonwealth 

presented SOAB expert Stephen Pflugfelder, who concluded that Appellant 

met the criteria for an SVP pursuant to the Sexual Offenses Reporting and 

Notification Act3 (SORNA II). At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court 

designated Appellant as an SVP. That same day, the trial court sentenced 

Appellant to a term of two-to-five-years’ imprisonment for possessing child 

pornography and a concurrent term of five years’ probation for criminal use 

of a communication facility. Appellant did not file post sentence motions. 

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3 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9799.10-9799.42.
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Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.4 Both Appellant and the trial

court complied with the requirements of Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

On appeal, Appellant raises the following issue for our review:

Did the lower court err in making a finding that the 

Commonwealth had met its burden of proving that Appellant was 

[an SVP] pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799[.24]?

Appellant’s Brief at 4 (formatting altered).

Initially, Appellant concedes that he has a mental abnormality or 

personality disorder. Id. at 11. However, Appellant argues that he does not 

meet the statutory criteria for an SVP because the Commonwealth failed to 

establish that he engaged in predatory behavior. Id. In support, Appellant 

alleges that Mr. Pflugfelder “could not point [to] any conduct by Appellant that 

was predatory in a sexual way.” Id. at 17 (citing N.T. SVP Hr’g, 7/19/22, at 

40-43, 46-47, 50, 53, 55). Further, Appellant claims that his prior convictions 

for terroristic threats and harassment were not relevant to the SVP 

determination because the underlying allegations were “never proven to a 

‘clear and convincing’ standard.” Id. at 17-18. Appellant also argues that Mr. 

Pflugfelder erroneously relied on other allegations that were never 

adjudicated, including a juvenile offense concerning an obscene phone call 

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4 Appellant’s notice of appeal did not indicate the date of the order or 

judgment being appealed. See Notice of Appeal, 7/27/22. After this Court 

issued a rule to show cause order, Appellant filed a response stating that he 

intended to appeal from the judgment of sentence imposed on July 19, 

2022. Accordingly, the rule is discharged, and we have amended the 

caption accordingly.
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and a report from Bucks County Children and Youth Services (CYS) in which

Appellant was alleged to have taken sexually suggestive photographs of 

children who were under his care. Id. at 15-17. For these reasons, Appellant 

concludes that there was insufficient evidence that he engaged in the

predatory behavior necessary to support an SVP determination. Id. at 18-19. 

We review an SVP designation to determine whether the Commonwealth 

presented clear and convincing evidence that the defendant meets the 

statutory definition of an SVP. Commonwealth v. Hollingshead, 111 A.3d 

186, 189 (Pa. Super. 2015). “As with any sufficiency of the evidence claim, 

we view all evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth [as verdict winner].” Id. (citation omitted).

To prove a defendant is an SVP, the Commonwealth must first establish 

that the defendant was convicted of a sexually violent offense. Then the 

Commonwealth must prove that the defendant has “a mental abnormality or 

personality disorder that makes [them] likely to engage in predatory sexually 

violent offenses.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.12. The statute defines “mental 

abnormality” as “[a] congenital or acquired condition of a person that affects 

the emotional or volitional capacity of the person in a manner that predisposes 

that person to the commission of criminal sexual acts to a degree that makes 

the person a menace to the health and safety of other persons.” Id. The 

defendant’s conduct must be “predatory,” which the statute defines as “[a]n 

act directed at a stranger or at a person with whom a relationship has been 

instituted, established, maintained, or promoted, in whole or in part, in order 
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to facilitate or support victimization.” Id.; Commonwealth v. Stephens, 74 

A.3d 1034, 1038 (Pa. Super. 2013); see also Commonwealth v. Geiter, 

929 A.2d 648, 651 (Pa. Super. 2007).

In determining whether an individual meets the definition of an SVP, the 

SOAB evaluates the following factors:

(1) Facts of the current offense, including: 

(i) Whether the offense involved multiple victims. 

(ii) Whether the individual exceeded the means necessary 

to achieve the offense. 

(iii) The nature of the sexual contact with the victim. 

(iv) Relationship of the individual to the victim. (v) Age of 

the victim. 

(vi) Whether the offense included a display of unusual 

cruelty by the individual during the commission of the crime. 

(vii) The mental capacity of the victim. 

(2) Prior offense history, including: 

(i) The individual’s prior criminal record. 

(ii) Whether the individual completed any prior sentences. 

(iii) Whether the individual participated in available 

programs for sexual offenders. 

(3) Characteristics of the individual, including: 

(i) Age. 

(ii) Use of illegal drugs. 

(iii) Any mental illness, mental disability or mental 

abnormality. 

(iv) Behavioral characteristics that contribute to the 

individual’s conduct. 
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(4) Factors that are supported in a sexual offender assessment 

field as criteria reasonably related to the risk of reoffense. 

42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.24(b).

Here, Appellant claims that there was insufficient evidence that his 

conduct was “predatory” for purposes of the SVP determination. In its Rule 

1925(a) opinion, the trial court addressed Appellant’s claim as follows:

[A]n act is predatory when the act is “directed at a stranger or at 

a person with whom a relationship has been initiated, established 

maintained or promoted, in whole or in part, in order to facilitate 

or support victimization.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.12. Furthermore, 

the statutory definition of “predatory” contains no requirement 

that Appellant engaged in predatory behavior in the instant 

offense. See Commonwealth v. Fletcher, 947 A.2d 776, 776 

(Pa. Super. 2008). Rather, the requirement is that the offender 

is likely to engage in predatory behavior, regardless of whether 

the offense at issue was predatory itself. See id.; see also 

[Commonwealth v. Feucht, 955 A.2d 377, 381 (Pa. Super. 

2008) ].

Mr. Pflugfelder opined that Appellant has engaged in predatory 

behavior in the past, although he stated his belief that [] neither 

the possession of child pornography nor masturbation to the same 

is “predatory behavior” for the purposes of [an] SVP designation. 

N.T. SVP Hr’g at 53-55. Mr. Pflugfelder based this opinion on the 

definition provided by the statute and opined that Appellant’s prior 

conviction in 2002 for terroristic threats in which Appellant made 

an obscene phone call to a stranger[/]victim, constituted 

predatory behavior as defined in the statute. Id. at 40, 53-55. 

Appellant was convicted of harassment in 2006, which according 

to the records of Bucks County Adult Probation, was for making a 

“fraudulent and malicious phone call to 911.” Id. at 56.

Appellant’s three convictions: terroristic threats resulting from an 

obscene phone call, his harassment conviction for the fraudulent 

and malicious phone call to 911, and the instant conviction for 

child pornography and criminal use of a communication facility 

have an important commonality. In each instance Appellant 

targeted a stranger. Be it the obscene phone call, the 911 call, or 

when he uploaded “obvious child sexual exploitative material” to 
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the website Twitter.com, each of these acts were directed to a 

victim that Appellant did not know. Moreover, during an 

investigation by [CYS] separate from the instant offense, 

Appellant admitted to masturbating to videos of children he 

personally knew. Id. at 35-36. In light of this information, Mr. 

Pflugfelder found that Appellant had initiated a relationship in part 

or in whole to facilitate victimization. As a result, Appellant has 

engaged in predatory behavior that has both been directed to a 

stranger[/] victim and to an individual to whom he had initiated a 

relationship in part or in whole to facilitate victimization.

Under the statue, the SOAB assessor conducting [an] SVP 

assessment is required to examine certain statutory indicators. 

These indicators signal the likelihood of future offenses, and are 

not factors to be weighed against each other. The presence of 

factors is the relevant analysis, factors that are not present or 

inapplicable to the current facts do not count against a conclusion 

that [Appellant] is [an] SVP. Of the [fourteen] listed statutory 

sub-indicators, six of them were found present, two were not 

found present, and six were found to be unsuited for Appellant’s 

assessment. This court found that (i) the offense involved 

multiple victims, (ii) the children victims depicted in the child 

sexual exploitative material were of very tender age, (iii) 

Appellant’s prior criminal record counseled for a finding of SVP 

status, (iv) Appellant had completed his prior sentences, (v) the 

fact that Appellant had already completed sexual offender 

treatment and subsequently reoffended, and (vi) Appellant’s 

behavioral characteristics made it likely that he would continue to 

offend. This court found that (a) Appellant had no relationship 

with the victims for the instant offense, and (b) that Appellant’s 

commission of the offense did not involve him displaying unusual 

cruelty. Id. at 62-77.

* * *

In sum, Mr. Pflugfelder concluded that “[Appellant] has engaged 

in sexually inappropriate behaviors over the course of his life that 

would suggest a sexual behavior problem” and “based on his 

mental abnormality and engaging in predatory behavior, he’s 

likely to reoffend.” Id. at 36-37 . . . .

Nor can Appellant’s additional behavior be ignored. He admitted 

to [CYS] that he has been attracted to children since before he 

was [twelve] years old, and had advanced beyond mere fantasy, 

to the consumption of child pornography, to taking photographs 
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of the clothed buttocks, bare legs, and bare feet of prepubescent 

children for whom he was in a caretaking role. This type of 

escalating behavior is deeply concerning and strongly suggests 

that Appellant is likely to engage in predatory sexually violent 

behavior in the future. 

Based on Appellant’s prior convictions, which involved predatory 

behavior, along with Appellant’s behavior of covertly taking 

photographs of young female children he was babysitting, and the 

violent, cruel nature of the pornographic files found on Appellant’s 

devices, this court was satisfied that the Commonwealth, through 

Mr. Pflugfelder, presented clear and convincing evidence as to not 

only Appellant’s mental abnormality, but also as to the presence 

of predatory behavior. This court is also satisfied that Mr. 

Pflugfelder thoroughly considered the requisite statutory factors 

listed in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.24(b) as they relate to the 

circumstances surrounding the instant case. Mr. Pflugfelder 

assessed and pointed to several statutory factors that increased 

Appellant’s likelihood of reoffending, such as the age of the victims 

depicted in the child pornography being prepubescent, the fact 

that Appellant had been investigated in the past [by CYS] for 

allegedly looking at the intimate parts of one of the children 

Appellant was in a caregiving role with, and the fact that Appellant 

previously completed sex offender treatment back in 2004. N.T. 

SVP Hr’g at 36, 48. Mr. Pflugfelder testified that the fact that 

Appellant had previously undergone treatment and then 

reoffended afterward is more concerning than if Appellant had 

never undergone sex offender treatment. Id. at 48. 

Trial Ct. Op. at 9-13 (some citations omitted, formatting altered).

On this record, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth, we agree with the trial court that there was sufficient 

evidence establishing that Appellant engaged in predatory conduct. See

Hollingshead, 111 A.3d at 189. We agree with the trial court’s analysis of 

the evidence presented at the SVP hearing, including Mr. Pflugfelder’s 

testimony that the trial court found credible and supported by the record which 

described Appellant’s history of predatory behavior. See N.T. SVP Hr’g at 60-
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77; see also Trial Ct. Op. at 8. Therefore, Appellant’s challenge to the SVP 

determination is meritless, and no relief is due. See Stephens, 74 A.3d at 

1038. For these reasons, we affirm on the basis of the trial court’s opinion.

Judgment of sentence affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 5/8/2023