(RightWing.org) – A popular photographer has been arrested on child pornography charges. David Eric Yellen, a 58-year-old Royal Oak, Michigan, resident, was caught after cops traced him through a file-sharing site. Worryingly, he specializes in taking photos of children’s gymnastics events.
Last month an FBI agent was trawling through a peer-to-peer file-sharing site that’s used by pedophiles when he identified a user who had downloaded 14 obscene files, including at least two classed as child pornography under federal law. On May 23, the agent managed to trace the user’s IP address to Yellen’s home. They identified him as a freelance photographer who records girls’ gymnastics events and has won multiple awards during his career. On June 1, the FBI arrested him and charged him with possession and distribution of child abuse images.
According to agents, Yellen admitted possessing child porn images, which he said he’d downloaded ten years ago; he denies having downloaded or shared any through the site he was caught on, although he does admit to regularly using the system. He denied that he’d produced any pornography himself but confessed that he would take pictures of girls’ bare feet during gymnastics competitions and then use these “for his own pleasure.”
According to the criminal complaint against him, which was unsealed on June 2, Yellen had at least 1,500 images of children stored on his devices — including the ones the agent originally traced through the file-sharing site — and at least 500 of these qualify as child porn. One of his hard drives contained a folder called BFK, which he admitted stood for “barefoot kids.”
Yellen also claimed that he didn’t know other people could download the images from him. The agent who filed the criminal complaint isn’t convinced, writing, “I do not believe that he was unaware that he had his files in a location that allowed for sharing with others.”
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