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A Mission man has been indicted for downloading child sexual abuse material using a peer-to-peer file sharing software for nearly a year, according to a criminal complaint.
David Edward Barron, born in 1954, was charged with downloading child pornography around June 8, 2023 through approximately Jan. 23 of this year.
On Jan. 9, members of the FBI Violent Crimes Against Children squad in McAllen identified an Internet Protocol address using BitTorrent to download image and video files with names suggestive of child pornography.
The members obtained the hash values for the files in question, referenced them against a database of known child pornography files and found that they were matches.
Agents identified the IP address to be registered to Charter Communications Inc. who were served with a subpoena for subscriber information, which returned to an address in Mission.
On Jan. 24, an officer with the Montgomery County, Texas Constable’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, connected a digital device at the same IP address in an undercover capacity.
The device at the IP address made available for distribution 4,461 files, 3,089 of which are suspected of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, and 502 files were listed as severe CSAM.
“The available files contained prepubescent children with their genitals lewdly exposed,” the complaint said. “The officer was able to download content from well-known series collected by people with an interest in CSAM.”
On Jan. 25, FBI agents were contacted by a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations special agent who stated that he also connected multiple times with a digital device and downloaded content.
That same day, agents executed a federal search warrant for the Mission residence associated with the IP address. Agents identified one of the residents to be Barron, a previously convicted sex offender.
In a post-Miranda statement, Barron stated he shouldn’t have downloaded those files and that he prefers younger girls.
He also admitted to possessing files from the well-known series and that he was familiar with it.
“Barron further admitted to having online accounts and identifiers that were not reported to Mission Police Department as part of his terms of sex offender registration conditions,” the complaint said.
Barron is scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Juan F. Alanis for his arraignment on March 1.
