EX-SCOUT LEADER ACCUSED IN CHILD PORN
Marc Turner charged with promotion of child pornography.
A 52-year-old Austin man who previously supervised an Austin Boy Scout troop is suspected of owning and creating child pornography, according to an affidavit from the Austin Police Department.
Marc Turner was arrested and booked into the Travis County Jail on Monday. He is charged with promotion of child pornography, jail records show.
Turner had been under investigation by a company he worked for in Round Rock since authorities found child pornography on his computer during a network search last month, the affidavit said.
Investigators found images and videos of an exposed child on a brick walkway on two storage devices connected to Turner’s computer, and police believe it is the same walkway at Turner’s home in the 6000 block of Carisbrooke Lane, the document says. Police also found photos they suspect to be a pornographic image of a “prepubescent child” in what appears to be Turner’s bed, the affidavit says.
Turner also owned a photo of a man sexually assaulting a prepubescent child, and glasses that look similar to Turner’s are in the photo, the affidavit says. Police also found a thumb drive in Turner’s pants pocket that contained covertly recorded videos of children using the bathroom, the affidavit says. The videos appear to be taken inside the bathroom at Turner’s home.
Turner was a scoutmaster for an Austin Boy Scout troop from 2012 to 2014, said Charles Mead,
local spokesman for Boy Scouts of America. Turner had been a registered volunteer for that troop since 2006.
A resume on LinkedIn. com for an Austin man named Marc Turner, who is listed as being a scoutmaster through 2014 for 11- to 13-year-old boys, says he is a principal engineer at Emerson Automation Solutions. That company couldn’t be reached Friday.
The Round Rock company Turner worked for was not named in the affidavit, but the document mentioned he was a principal engineer for an automation solutions company.
The resume also mentions that he is a volunteer photographer for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a company that provides “remembrance photography at request of parents who had lost or were losing an infant.” The resume says Turner “was on-call several days a month with Austin area hospitals, and provided free services for about 20 families.”
Turner will be placed on a list that prohibits him from volunteering with Boy Scouts of America in the future, Mead said. Boy Scout officials are working to notify the Austin troop Turner was involved with about his arrest.
“We obviously hope this is not the case, but were it to come to light that there was a Scout who was involved in this man’s crimes, then we absolutely want to make sure the support is there for that young person, that authorities are informed and that any counseling resources are made available,” Mead said.
Until they contact the troop, the troop won’t be publicly named, Mead said.
Authorities in Missouri were initially notified about questionable content on Turner’s computer because his company’s “insider threat detection platform” flagged a file on his computer, the affidavit says.
When interviewed by police, Turner admitted to having a sex and pornography addiction, the affidavit said.
He is being held in Travis County Jail on a $500,000 bail. Promotion of child pornography is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Contact Ali Linan at 512-445-3931. Contact Katie Hall at 512-445-3707.