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COLUMBIA — A Columbia man faces up to 90 years in prison after being arrested and charged Friday on suspicion of having a "large amount" of child porn.
Norman Troxel, 44, whose address is listed at 1501 Vandiver Drive, Apartment 138, was charged with six counts of class B felony child porn possession.
An investigation began in May when police were tipped off by someone Troxel had asked to repair his computer, according to a news release from the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force.
The child porn was found when the computer system was being fixed, the release said, at which point the unidentified man notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Authorities said numerous videos and a large amount of pictures were later found on Troxel's computer, and a July 17 search warrant at his home resulted in the seizure of more child porn. Detectives from the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force and the Boone County Sheriff's Department arrested Troxel 13 days later.
Possessing child porn is a class C felony unless more than 20 images or one video are found. Then it becomes a more serious offense, punishable with a sentence of five to 15 years in prison for each count.
The charge also becomes a class B felony if the person has any previous convictions for having child porn. Troxel has no prior convictions for child pornography, according to Missouri Case.Net and the National Sex Offender Public Website.
Bond was set for $120,000. Troxel posted bond, according to the Boone County Sheriff's website, and was no longer being held at the Boone County Jail as of Saturday.
According to a Facebook account with Troxel's name on it, he works as a mechanic at Revlimit Power Sports.
A call to a number listed at Troxel's address went unanswered Saturday.
Since it was formed in 2007, the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force has conducted hundreds of investigations, leading to dozens of convictions and to the identification of numerous child victims, according to a previous Missourian report.
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Comments
As a Consumer Electronics repairman for over 16 years, I wish that you would not post that this is how he was caught. If all these A** holes know that we are looking for this kind of stuff, and that we will turn them in, it makes it harder to catch them.
MMMMmmm isn't it a invasion of privacy to be looking at a customer's personal information contained on their hard drive with out their express written permission? I can see if the Tech had permission but if the Tech did not have express written permission I could see where it could be tossed out of court on that technicality. Now if there was a picture openly displayed on their desk top of child porn that would be a good measure for probable cause to contact law enforcement but to just go randomly searching through a customer's hard drive if the Tech is bored would seem out of line with a repair. I hate child porn as much as the next person but the rights of customers are blatantly broken many times over when any computer goes into a shop for repair.
With our loss of freedoms becoming more and more obvious where does it end? The FBI had a program called "Lantern" a few years back that they could sneak in through a "back Door" but that was ruled as illegal if memory serves me correctly. Then along came the Patriot Act with a host of hidden clauses buried deep in it's structuring.
I'm just tossing out some points of conversation here being Big Brother is watching more and more these days and it looks like there is no depth nor end to how far they can or will go to invade our everyday lives.