More charges expected in online child porn
Radio host says he is singled out
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Memphis police said Thursday that further arrests are likely as they continue tracking down the source of Internet child pornography as part of an investigation that already has led to charges against a local radio host.
Thaddeus Matthews, 55, posted $100,000 bond and was released from Shelby County Jail on Thursday on charges of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor and exploitation of a minor. He has an initial court appearance scheduled for Friday.
Matthews, who also is a blogger, was arrested Wednesday after posting on his website a photo of an adult engaged in a sex act with a small child. He told news media organizations that he posted the image — which had been widely disseminated on the Internet — in an effort to identify and help the child victim.
It is not clear whether the photo was taken locally.
Memphis police spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said in an e-mail that investigators in the department’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit will continue to delve into the matter and “feel that additional charges are forthcoming.”
After his release, Matthews suggested on Facebook that police had singled him out for prosecution. “... With the pic being on Facebook pages prior to my posting on yesterday, will they selectively come after me or will they come after every poster?” he wrote on the social-networking site.
Matthews has a history of contentious dealings with MPD. In 2008, for instance, the department and the District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation into the leaking of sensitive police documents that Matthews had posted.
But Rudolph said Matthews
was not unfairly targeted for prosecution. The Internet Crimes unit already was investigating the dissemination of the same pornographic image, she said, when officers learned Matthews had posted it.
“When ICAC investigators were notified of this intentional posting, they could not ignore the fact that Matthews clearly violated the law. Immediate action was necessary ...,” Rudolph said in the e-mail.
Many local residents saw the image in text messages, e-mails or on the Internet. Kimberly Betts of Westwood said she immediately called police after receiving the picture in a text.
“It was horrible, just utterly disgusting,” Betts said Thursday.
She said officers told her she could be charged simply for having the image on her phone. “I was more concerned about who the child is, or who the pervert (in the photo) is,” Betts added.
As the image went viral earlier this week, Police Director Toney Armstrong said in a news conference that MPD would be working with the FBI to track down its source.
“We are still seeking the identity of the suspect and where this image was originally generated,” Rudolph said Thursday.
Joel Siskovic, spokesman for the Memphis office of the FBI, said the case “could still be taken federal,” but it so far has been handled on the local level.
“We routinely work closely with MPD on these cases,” Siskovic said.
Officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the case.