Man charged with having child porn says he went down a ‘rabbit hole’
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AMMON — A 44-year-old Ammon man is facing multiple felony charges after allegedly possessing child pornography and telling law enforcement he went down a “rabbit hole.”
John Demaria IV has been charged with 10 felonies for willfully possessing or accessing child sexually exploitative material. The case was filed Friday.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, a detective from the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office investigated a cyber tip on March 6 from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The tip regarded an individual, later identified as Demaria, who allegedly uploaded an image of child porn to his personal cloud account with Synchronoss Technologies.
The software company reported the user.
After investigating, the detective found multiple child sexual abuse material were uploaded showing girls as young as 5 years old.
The detective sent a search warrant for the account and found 76 images of child sexual abuse material found on Demaria’s account.
On May 18, investigators from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force assisted by the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho Falls Police Department and Homeland Security executed a search warrant at Demaria’s home in Ammon.
He was detained and taken to the sheriff’s office for an interview.
Through the interview, Demaria admitted to having gone down a “rabbit hole” on the internet while he was “link surfing,” documents said.
Demaria allegedly told law enforcement about using social media applications to receive links to pornography. Demaria said he used an application on his phone where he keeps images hidden, court documents said.
After some conversation with law enforcement, Demaria decided to stop talking and asked for an attorney.
Electronic devices were found at his home and they were examined. Similar images were allegedly found on his devices in the application where he kept images hidden. They were in a folder called “Ultra.” The detective discovered 15 images in the folder.
A more advanced search into Demaria’s phone found hundreds of images of child porn. Almost all of the images were of girls ranging from 10 to 11 years old. There were videos found too.
Due to the pictures and videos, Demaria was arrested and taken to the Bonneville County Jail.
He appeared in court on Friday and was given a $100,000 bail. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on May 31 at 1 p.m. at the Bonneville County Courthouse.
“Our ICAC unit has yet again shown their commitment to the children of Idaho. Every day they deal with the worst of humanity, but with every arrest they make, our children become a little safer. I am very proud of their hard work and continued service to our state,” Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a news release on Friday.
The Attorney General’s ICAC Unit works with the Idaho ICAC Task Force, a coalition of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, to investigate and prosecute individuals who use the internet to criminally exploit children.
Anyone with information regarding the exploitation of children is encouraged to contact local police, the Attorney General’s ICAC Unit at (208) 947-8700, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.
Though Demaria has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.
Each charge has a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.