Nationwide child porn, harassment case traced to Northern California man
Anderson California is a small town of about 10,000 people, located along Interstate 5 in Shasta County, about ten mile south of Redding. Darren Michael Brown, a 29-year-old resident of Anderson, has been implicated in activities resulting in the collection of thousands of sexually explicit images of minors from all over the country.
The case against Brown began when investigators from another state received a complaint that an under-aged victim had been coerced into sending pornographic selfie photos and videos to Brown via social media. According to the Anderson Police, the investigation traced Brown to his home in Anderson, and they contacted local detectives in April.
The Anderson Police Problem Oriented Policing Unit (POP) took on the investigation. The out-of-state investigators provided them with the evidence and case materials they had collected. The local investigation led to a search warrant for Brown’s home in June, when they seized a number of computers and laptops, digital pads, smart phones, and storage devices. The team enlisted the help of federal Homeland Security Investigators to do a complete forensic analysis of the electronic evidence stored on the devices.
That analysis was completed in September, and yielded a large amount of evidence recovered. The POP investigators were presented with evidence of thousands of explicit images and videos of victims under 18-years of age who lived in many states, and even outside the US. The detectives traced and then began contacting the minors and their parents about the case, and learned that many had been threatened and coerced into sending Brown the images of themselves. Anderson Police Sergeant Casey Day told KRCR News that Brown was blackmailing these 14 to 16-year-old girls that he would tell their parents or teachers about them if they didn’t send more images.
Day added that none of the parents of the victims, who lived in states such as Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas and beyond, were aware that their daughters had been sending the images to “some guy that lives out west.”
With evidence and statements collected, POP investigators arrested Brown on Thursday, November 19, and he was booked into Shasta County Jail on a number of felony charges related to possession of child pornography, molesting or annoying a child, and lewd or lascivious crimes against a child.
Read More: KRCR TV: Anderson police bust multi-state child porn operation
