Brother of Vegas shooter arrested on child porn rap
LOS ANGELES — A brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of possessing child pornography, authorities said Wednesday.
Bruce Paddock, 59, was arrested on a 20-count felony complaint, a police statement said.
His relationship to Stephen Paddock was confirmed by a lawenforcement official briefed on the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Bruce Paddock is not a suspect in the Las Vegas shooting.
The child porn case predated the Oct. 1 shooting, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It wasn’t immediately known if Paddock has a lawyer. He was being held on $60,000 US bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The felony complaint for his arrest alleges one count of possession of child or youth pornography and 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
The complaint signed Tuesday by a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney specified that between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30 of 2014, Bruce Paddock knowingly possessed more than 600 images of child or youth pornography involving use of a person under age 18 engaging in or simulating sexual conduct.
The material included “10 or more images of a prepubescent minor or a minor who was under 12 years of age,” the complaint said.
The police statement said Bruce Paddock came under investigation after evidence was discovered inside a business in the Sun Valley area of the city where he had been a squatter. The evidence was discovered after his eviction.
At the time, Bruce Paddock was a transient and couldn’t be found, police said. He was recently located at an address in North Hollywood.
Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds more were wounded Oct. 1 at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip. Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel tower. Stephen Paddock was found dead.
Another brother, Eric Paddock, spoke to media following the shooting, but Bruce Paddock did not.
Meanwhile, the costs of emergency police, fire and other services related to the massacre were projected Wednesday at about $4 million US and climbing.
The disclosure came amid pledges by the U.S. government to provide $1 million, and from the state of Nevada to pay $600,000 to defray costs stemming from the shooting.
Las Vegas police Officer Laura Meltzer provided what she called a preliminary figure of $3.5 million for department costs associated with the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
“We still have a lot of resources devoted to the investigation,” Meltzer said. “We still have people working overtime.”