A newly formed cybercrime unit involving federal agents and prosecutors is making arrests and getting convictions of a growing number of child pornography offenders including a man who collects obscene images of babies and toddlers still in diapers.
Acting U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer and FBI Agent in Charge Calvin Shivers announced the recent arrests and prosecutions of five men and women on child pornography charges in separate cases by members of the Cybercrime and National Security Section.
The five cases demonstrate the effectiveness of the Cybercrime unit, Troyer’s spokesman Jeffrey Dorschner said. The number of child pornography production cases have increased five fold since 2012 and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children fielded 4.4 million reports to its cyber tip line in 2015.
The cases had previously been prosecuted by several different units, Dorschner said. In February all the cases were consolidated under the umbrella of Cybercrime, he said.
“Cybercrime and national security crimes are increasingly urgent threats in the District of Colorado,” Troyer said. “This is what we do: identify emerging threats that we can effectively address, and fluidly deploy an elite team to meet the threat.”
The five accused child pornography suspects include David Eugene Reed, 66, of Longmont, who allegedly amassed 248,150 child pornography pictures, and Damien Marc Smith, 45, of Denver who was allegedly in possession of 140,000 child pornography images and videos upon his April 26 arrest.
Sharee Ewudzi-Acquah, 47, of Westminster, a long-time employee of the University of Colorado who hid porn overseas including in Russia. She has agreed to a plea bargain in which she faces up to 10 years in prison.
Chief U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger sentenced Walter Briggs, 62, of Denver to 15 years in prison.
The FBI discovered hundreds of thousands of child pornography images, including more than 1,000 of infants and toddlers, on multiple electronic devices owned by Briggs. More than 100 of the images depicted sadomasochistic sex abuse.
Briggs had already been convicted of child sex offenses and was a registered sex offender.
