A St. Robert man charged with seven counts of possession of child pornography entered a plea of not guilty last week during an arraignment hearing at the Pulaski County Courthouse.
Benjamin Morrow, 43, was arrested last week at his home, where members of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department and the South Central Missouri Computer Crime Task Force seized three computers, 19 CDs/DVDS and one USB thumb drive after an investigation began in early December.
Court documents reveal Deputy Wayne Becker of the South Central Missouri Computer Crime Task Force received an Internet Crimes Against Children case referral on Dec. 7 from a detective, John Howe, from the Independence Police Department who was assigned to the FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force.
“Det. Howe was investigating a subject trading known child exploitation files using the Internet,” according to a probable cause statement filed with the court. Information was subpoenaed from Internet provider, Embarq, and investigators learned an IP address was in use by Morrow at his residence. A search warrant request was submitted to the Pulaski County Circuit Clerk, according to the statement, which was signed by Judge Colin Long on Dec. 11.
Becker, as well as four members of the PCSD, made contact with Morrow after the search warrant was executed.
“I told him we had probable cause that there was child pornography on his computer. I asked him if I was going to find child pornography on his computer and he said ‘yes,’” court documents state. Morrow was taken into custody and interviewed at the PCSD and “told us that he had been downloading child pornography for ‘quite a while,’” according to the statement.
“Between the two hard drives, from the laptop and desktop computers, that were found in the operation, I identified and bookmarked 871 files, 783 images and 88 movies, of obvious, known or likely child exploitation,” according to the probable cause statement.
Documents state Morrow “knowingly and/or recklessly possessed child pornography when he maintained at least six (6) movie files and twenty-six (26) images depicting children in sexual acts on his computer and made them available to others to download via the Internet.”
The charges against Morrow are all class B felonies, which range from five to 15 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections. He is currently being held in the Pulaski County Jail on a $500,000 cash-only bond. His next court appearance is scheduled at 9 a.m. Feb. 9 for a counsel status hearing.
