A 26-year-old Brownsville man remains in federal custody following his arrest on a child pornography charge.
A federal criminal complaint states that authorities found child pornography videos on a cellphone belonging to Daniel Benjamin Molstad.
Authorities said he used the Telegram app to share the videos. Molstad was charged with one count of distribution or receipt of child pornography and one count of possessing or accessing child pornography.
Molstad appeared Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ignacio Torteya III. He was ordered held without bond until his next hearings which are scheduled for Feb. 14.
According to court documents, the Texas Attorney General’s Office on May 25, 2021 contacted the Homeland Security Investigations and Rio Grande Valley Child Exploration Investigations Task Force with an investigative referral from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The referral was from a cloud-based storage involving a suspect uploading multiple files of child exploitation, authorities said.
The investigation led authorities to Molstad, and on Jan. 27, special agents with RGV CEITF conducted a “consensual interview” with the man at his work place in Brownsville, court documents reflect.
During the interview, Molstad admitted to receiving, distributing and possessing child pornography, according to authorities. He stated “he had been downloading child pornography for approximately two years through online chat groups,” the documents state.
Through a search of Molstad’s cellphone, agents said they determined he had received or downloaded more than 200 videos of child pornography from Aug. 1, 2021 to Jan. 22, 2022, the documents state.
The videos depicted children engaged in sexual acts, officials said. “In addition, some of the videos depicted infants from approximately three to six months of age engaged in sexual acts,” according to the documents.
Molstad was taken into custody on Jan. 27.
