Man charged with possessing child pornography after other man with similar charges turns him in
Published at | Updated atIDAHO FALLS – An Idaho Falls man was charged with multiple counts of child sexual exploitation after another man accused of similar crimes turned the first man into local authorities.
Che Miles, 39, was charged on Dec. 21 with five counts of willfully possessing or accessing child sexually exploitative material.
In July, local detectives from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force began an undercover investigation into the sharing of child sexual abuse material. They soon located a computer in the Idaho Falls area that had been used to share child pornography.
According to a report written by the task force, there were “thousands of images, and a lot of them were child erotica.”
This led investigators to Nathan Law, 48, who was allegedly sharing child pornography online and admitted to trying to film up the skirts of young girls at church.
On Dec. 13, a search warrant was conducted at Law’s home by the Idaho Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office and the Idaho Falls Police Department.
Investigators interviewed Law, who admitted to downloading and uploading child pornography and sharing images of child sexual abuse material with other people.
Law identified one of these people as Miles, a member of his church, using a photo from his Facebook account.
Law told officers he last hung out with Miles at his home on Oct. 1. Law was then arrested and booked into the Bonneville County Jail.
On Dec. 21, Detectives from the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by investigators from the Idaho Falls Police Department and the Idaho Attorney General’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, executed a search warrant at Miles’ home.
During an interview with investigators, Miles admitted to “having accessed links to specific cloud services where he would download these sexual abuse images.” He also admitted to taking the images and moving them to a saved folder on an external hard drive, according to court documents.
He told officers that he received child pornography from Law, showing girls as young as 10 years old. Miles also told police that Law had filmed a teenage girl inside a home in “a state of undress” without her knowledge or permission.
When investigators reviewed the “several thousands of images of child sexual abuse material” on Miles’ devices, they found videos of girls as young as four or five years old engaging in sexual acts with adult men, according to police reports.
Miles was arrested and booked into the Bonneville County Jail, where his bond was set to $100,000. He later posted a cash bond and was released the same day.
Though Miles has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.
Miles is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 4, 2023.
If convicted, Miles could face up to 50 years in prison and $50,000 in fines.