Man charged with dealing in depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct

The Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney’s office on Wed., June 30 charged a Thurston County man with dealing in depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

The man had a search warrant executed at his home on June 30 where several pieces of electronic equipment were seized.

On May 17, a Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) for a follow-up investigation. The NCMEC cyber tip originated with the Electronic Service Provider (ESP) known as Medialab/Kik after it became aware of child sexual abuse material being uploaded by a user on the Kik messenger platform on March 5, 10 and 21.

Kik provided 19 files in association with the man’s account. Eighteen were suspected to contain child sexual abuse material.

On May 18, the Pierce County deputy conducted an image review of the uploaded files, which showed what appeared to be juveniles involved in sex acts or what appeared to be juveniles barely clothed in sexually explicit poses.

Previously the man resided in Roy, which is in Pierce County. He has since moved to Thurston County so the case was referred to the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney.

The Prosecutor’s Probable Cause filing states that during the course of an interview on June 30, The accused man admitted to viewing the images and indicated that he did forward them on the Kik messenger platform.