Washington’s most prolific child porn downloader arrested
Oct 3, 2013, 3:48 PM | Updated: 4:18 pm
The Washington State Patrol has arrested a Gig Harbor man accused of being the state’s most prolific downloader of child porn.
The man, whose identity we are not reporting until he is formally charged, came under investigation last May, said Washington State Patrol Lieutenant Ron Mead.
According to Mead, the State Patrol’s Missing and Exploited Children’s Task Force got a tip from the Seattle Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
Investigators served a search warrant July 13 and discovered over 9,000 images of child porn on several computers and digital media devices, Mead said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Virginia, which tracks all known images of child porn on the Internet – each with an individual “fingerprint” – determined the man had downloaded more pornographic images with children than anyone else in the state.
“There had been extensive work to wipe these devices clean of the pornographic images but a very detailed and time consuming review yielded thousands of images of young children engaged in sexual activity,” Mead said.
The State Patrol’s Missing and Exploited Children’s Task Force is one of the few agencies in the state capable of handling such an investigation, said Mead.
While the arrest is a significant one, Mead admits it’s just a “drop in the bucket,” and the state simply doesn’t have the resources to go after all the offenders.
“Any given time there’s literally thousands of these images being traded amongst thousands of people across the state and so we simply target the most prolific offenders.”
Investigators believe the over 9,000 images seized from the Gig Harbor man are just a fraction of the amount of child porn he traded.
“Quite frankly, I wish we could do more. But by making a dent in the demand for these images, hopefully at some point down the road we’re able to save young children from being victimized to manufacture these grotesque images and videos.”
The suspect was booked Thursday into the Pierce County Jail. The Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office says charges could be filed as soon as Friday.
