Deputy accused in child porn
ORLANDO — A Florida sheriff’s deputy is facing charges of receiving child pornography through the Canadian-based social media messaging app Kik.
Federal prosecutors say Orange County Deputy Kevin Hutchinson, 36, was interviewed Thursday as part of an investigation he transmitted child pornography when they found files he received that day.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had alerted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of child pornography being sent through Kik from an IP address in the Orlando area.
That address was traced to Hutchinson. Homeland Security Agent Ryan Eggland said in a criminal complaint that Hutchinson admitted he had child pornography files on his laptop.
Hutchinson was being detained Friday. sion or that version [of a software emulator]. When they finally said it’s a specific version, somebody came out and said that version didn’t come out until two years after I played the game,” Mitchell said in his first interview since losing his records.
Mitchell, a longtime Hollywood resident who now lives in Weston, achieved the high score at Boomers on July 31, 2010. He recalls more than 100 people shuffling in and out as he ran up the scoreboard for several hours that day.
In 1982, at the age of 17, Mitchell became the first person to reach the fabled kill screen of Donkey Kong, when the arcade game reaches its memory limit at level 117 and Mario seemingly commits suicide, dying for no reason. His total: 874,300 points.
He followed that up by reclaiming the Donkey Kong high score four more times, three against Steve Wiebe, his rival in the 2007 documentary “The King of Kong,” a film that cemented Mitchell’s image as the black hat of competitive gaming. Barrel, jump, hammer, smash. 933,900 points. 1,047,200 points. 1,050,200 points. 1,062,800 points.
It’s those last two high scores that have landed him in hot water. Twin Galaxies, the Guinness World Recordsanctioned keeper of video game high scores, ruled Mitchell’s scores were achieved on software that emulates Donkey Kong, not on the arcade game itself. That’s a problem because the software would allow someone to save and stop a game, which in turn would allow them to go back and replay if they die or get a score on a level they don’t like.
It’s a far fall for a man declared the “Video Game Player of the Century” in 1999 by the Japanese Amusement Machine and Marketing Association. He had just pulled off the first perfect Pac-Man score in history — 256 levels, consuming every fruit, every dot, every power pellet and every blue ghost with every power pellet consumed, all without dying once. 3,333,360 points.
“Probably my strongest accolade is that I did the first perfect Pac-Man,” Mitchell said. “It was quite the gala event. It was at the largest arcade in the world. Namco (Pac-Man’s creator) took me and flew me to Japan, where I had to repeat the performance.”
Now, as far as the scorekeeping body is concerned, that never happened. Not to mention his record-setting scores in Donkey Kong Jr, Ms. Pac-Man and Burger Time.
“The idea that they would go back and undo what was done more than 30 years ago in front of cameras and Life magazine and the best gamers of the day — it’s laughable,” he said.
If you recall Mitchell’s record-setting run in 2010 at Boomers in Dania Beach, contact dsweeney@sunsentinel.com or tweet @Daniel_Sweeney.