Video sharing investigation leads to 50 felony counts

A Hot Springs police investigation into peer-to-peer video sharing reportedly led to Friday’s arrest of a local man on 50 felony counts involving child pornography.

Brian Daniels, 56, of 219 Redfern Place, was taken into custody at his residence shortly before 11:30 a.m. Friday and charged with 50 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing of matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Daniels was later released on $125,000 bond

and is set to appear Aug. 21 in Garland County District Court.

According to the probable cause affidavit, during an investigation on March 7 into P2P networks, which allow the collection and sharing of videos and images, including child pornography, detectives located a personal computer in Hot Springs offering to share files with other P2P users. The IP address was registered through Cablelynx in Hot Springs.

That same day, shortly before 4:30 p.m., detectives were able to see 170 files being offered publicly from the IP address which an algorithm screener indicated contained images of suspected child pornography.

A subpoena was obtained on March 12 and delivered to Cablelynx seeking the subscriber information on the IP address. Cablelynx responded on March

15 and identified the subscriber in possession of the address at

219 Redfern Place. It was noted Daniels lived at that address with a roommate.

It was confirmed the images being offered at the IP address had previously been identified as actual images of child pornography and on July 30, detectives connected directly to Daniels’ computer and obtain a direct download from his file sharing program.

On Friday, detectives executed a search warrant at the residence and seized computer evidence believed to be related to child pornography.

Daniels allegedly admitted to detectives at the scene that he did, in fact, have child pornography on his computer and he was taken into custody at the time. After being read his rights, Daniels reportedly admitted to having at least 50 images and or videos of child pornography stored on his personal home computer located in his room.

He also stated his roommate had no knowledge or involvement in the downloading of illegal images.