Federal jury convicts Bryant man of child-porn charges

A 61-year-old Bryant man was convicted last week by a federal jury in Little Rock of five child-pornography charges.

Joseph Keck, a truck driver, was convicted of receiving and attempting to distribute child-pornography images through a peer-to-peer Internet program, and of advertising those images to other users and possessing images of child pornography. He will be sentenced at a later date by U.S. District Judge James Moody, who oversaw a twoday trial.

FBI agents testified that in 2016, the agency learned that someone was sharing child pornography from an address in Bryant where Keck stayed when not on the road. When he drove up to the house on May 9, 2016, in a white van, agents questioned him and took his two laptop computers, his external hard drive and his cellphone.

“Forensic examinations of the devices revealed tens of thousands of pictures and videos of child pornography,” according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland and Diane Upchurch, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Little Rock field office.

The release said Keck used a file-sharing program called Gigatribe to exchange images and videos with other users, and that he downloaded and shared tens of thousands of the illegal images and videos using 12 Gigatribe accounts. In Gigatribe chat logs, he told other users his name was Joe and that he liked boys between the ages of 12 and 16, Hiland and Upchurch said.

“Child pornographers create a market for the sexual abuse of children, and we will continue to aggressively prosecute this conduct in order to protect society’s most vulnerable victims — our children,” Hiland said.

Keck faces 15 to 30 years in prison for advertising child pornography; five to 20 years for receipt, distribution and attempted distribution of child pornography; and up to 10 years for possession. Each offense can also be punished by a fine of up to $250,000.