Man Admits Using KiK App For Child Porn; Gets 60 Month Sentence
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) — A 31-year-old man who admitted using the KiK Messenger smartphone application (app) to look at child pornography was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison today.
Jarrod Mayes of Fort Worth pled guilty in April 2016 to an indictment charging one count of possession of child pornography. Mayes, who was on bond since his arrest in December 2015, was remanded into custody following the sentencing hearing.
Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a search warrant at Mayes' home on December 17, 2015, and during the execution of the warrant, special agents seized digital media belonging to Mayes, including his iPhone.
According to documents filed in the case, Mayes admitted he first started using the KiK Messenger smartphone application (app) in 2009, and that was the first time watched child pornography. He acknowledged that he had saved videos and images of child pornography in a hidden folder inside of a calculator app on his cellphone.
He advised that he stored the images in this app because he did not want his wife to find them, and that when he deleted Kik from his cellphone, it would delete the images. Mayes said that when he would re-install KiK, he would post images of child pornography in group messages because other users would not send him any child pornography until he posted images of child pornography.
A forensic review of Mayes' iPhone revealed three video files; he knew the files depicted real minors, to include prepubescent minors, engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
(©2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
