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Top Stories Man charged with owning child porn
| Man charged with owning child porn |
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| Written by Beth Pleming |
| Thursday, 08 October 2009 15:35 |
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Images from seized computer ‘corrode the soul’ Haywood County Sheriff’s detectives took into custody Wednesday evening a man accused of possessing pornographic images of young children. Justin Elfand, 22, of Waynesville, remains in custody of the Haywood County Jail under $500,000 bond, pending 38 felony charges accusing him of sexually exploiting minors by possessing and sharing images of child porn on a peer-to-peer file sharing Internet Web site. He is charged with 19 counts each of second- and third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Detectives initiated an investigation after employees of a local business discovered the images on a computer at work, said Det. James Marsh, Haywood County Sheriff’s Office. That investigation revealed that Elfand loaned the computer to the business to replace one that had crashed. A search warrant was executed, the computer seized and sent to the U.S. Secret Service for forensic examination. That exam led authorities to the discovery of hundreds of still and video images depicting children engaging in sexual activity with each other and with adults, said Marsh. The children pictured appeared to range in age from teenage minors to babies less than 1 year old. Marsh described the images as those that “shock the conscious and corrode the soul.” There is no evidence to suggest that Elfand took the pictures or that local children were involved, he said. Nonetheless, possession of such images supports the actual abuse of real children who are being sexually assaulted, regardless of the location. “Something to remember is that these are real children,” said Marsh. Those who look at such images “are witnessing the actual abuse of a real child, so going after those who actually consume the product, is to go after one who is contributing to the industry that is actually involved in the abuse of real children — sometimes in other countries, and sometimes in the U.S.” Findings revealed by the forensic exam led authorities to identify Elfand as the primary suspect in this case, Marsh said. “We were able to isolate dates and times the images were downloaded. That information, along with extensive interviews with witnesses, enabled us to determine the whereabouts of the computer at the time when the images were downloaded, which isolated Elfand as the suspect,” said Marsh, later adding, “What sealed the deal, helped me to absolutely narrow it down to Justin, was the execution of a court order for his cell phone records and two other (potential suspects) who had access to the computer. (Those records) enabled us to definitively place Justin at the location where the computer was on certain dates when a large number of the images were downloaded. … And it definitively eliminated other suspects who were hundreds of miles away from the computer at the time of the downloads.” While hundreds of images were discovered, Marsh said charges filed reflect only those in which the children depicted are “clearly underage, when a sex act had clearly occurred. We selected 19 of the hundreds and charged based on those individual images.” If convicted, Elfand could face time in prison and life registration as a sexual offender. |
| Last Updated on Sunday, 08 November 2009 16:35 |
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