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Timothy Pressey
A Monticello man was arrested Saturday, Nov. 2, after an FBI investigation led to his location. Timothy Pressey, 40, has been charged with two counts of child exploitation, both Level 4 felonies. Through a series of Internet tracking investigations, the police were led to Pressey’s home.
According to the probable cause affidavit, an FBI Online covert employee operating in an undercover capacity follows child sexual abuse material through “trading rooms” or chat rooms on the Internet where predators post child pornography. The trading room had been encrypted to prevent subscriber information from being directly obtained.
The affidavit states, “As a result, individuals who use the (redacted) applications for (redacted) trading are going to great lengths to avoid detection from law enforcement.”
On Oct. 25, the FBI agent was in a chat room dedicated to hard core pornography that frequently involved underage photography porn trading. A person using the username “NAMELESS” distributed three images that depicted a lewd and lascivious display of a child taken by an Apple iPhone.
“NAMELESS” stated he had been sexually abusing the child, which he said was 6 years old, for the past three years.
The undercover agent began a conversation with the person through direct messaging. By using a URL that was publicly available, after “NAMELESS” clicked on the URL, his IP address was accessed by an iPhone and was captured. The IP address corresponded to a geolocation of the Indianapolis area. The Apple device was consistent with the file extension they believed originally produced the content placed in the website’s trading room.
The FBI Albany, New York division found the Apple device through using a series of processes that included a legal attache in Switzerland. They then made an emergency disclosure request to Apple for the subscriber’s information, which led them to Pressey noting that the Monticello location was “consistent with the greater Indianapolis area.”
On Nov. 2, a search warrant was granted by White County Superior Court Judge Brad Wooley to seize any device that could contain illegal material. While executing the search warrant, Monticello Police Captain Tony Stroup interviewed Pressey, who, according to the affidavit, admitted that he had taken the three photos at his residence, and that he had sent and distributed them online, then deleted them from his phone. He denied having any sexual contact with the minor child in the photos.
A pretrial conference is set for Jan. 15, at 10 a.m. and a jury trial is scheduled for April 1 in Superior Court.
All persons are presumed innocent until or unless proven guilty in a court of law.
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