Child porn charges against Texas man – A Tyler man arrested after a national organization traced activity involving child pornographic files to his email address now faces a federal charge, according to court records.
Dakota James Jerkes, 27, was arrested in October following an investigation into child pornography allegedly found on his phone.
According to an arrest affidavit released to KLTV on Tuesday, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted Dallas police about a tip from Yahoo! which indicated 263 uploaded files dealing with child pornography files. Dallas police then passed the tip along to Tyler police.
A specially trained investigator with Tyler police took on the case and reviewed the material and determined it depicted child pornography. A subpoena traced an address of Jerkes’ home in Tyler, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit states police spoke to Jerkes at his home, who at first denied looking at child pornography, then admitted to accidentally seeing it. When pressed further, Jerkes admitted to viewing, uploading and even trading child pornography on the dark web.
A forensic search of Jerkes’ phones showed there were 19,338 images and 236 videos, with a large portion of the material containing children engaging in sexual conduct.
Court records show the FBI filed a charge on Nov 22.