News - Local

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008

SLO County Sheriff’s deputy, postal employee, construction worker are among 55 people charged with sharing images and video of child pornography - some victims still toddlers - online

Sheriff’s deputy, postal employee, construction worker are among 55 people charged with sharing images and video of kids online

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Federal authorities have arrested three local men, including a sheriff’s deputy and a postal worker, as part of a major FBI investigation into the online sharing of child pornography.

Deputy Bryan Goossens and mail carrier Jeremy Neubauer were arrested Monday, while construction worker Bryan David Arnold was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of possessing child pornography, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.

The three men were among 55 people charged in federal and state courts after an eight-month investigation led by the FBI Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement Team and U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Most of the others arrested in the investigation are from Southern California.

All three men from San Luis Obispo County were booked at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.

They face federal charges of possession of child pornography, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

Goossens, 46, of Atascadero and Neubauer, 29, of Nipomo appeared in federal court Monday in Los Angeles. Arnold, 47, of Grover Beach was arrested Tuesday and was expected to appear in court the same day.

FBI officials served a search warrant at Goosens’ Atascadero home Aug. 7 while he was on paid administrative leave from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department, which began July 11.

Goosens quit Friday, according Sheriff’s Department spokesman Rob Bryn.

The department has investigated the deputy because of the child porn allegations, Bryn said.

“There’s nothing that leads us to believe in any of his assignments that he conducted himself in anything other than an appropriate manner,” Bryn said.

The department hired Goossens in 1988. He has worked as a correctional officer, deputy, patrol deputy, bailiff and member of the search and rescue team, Bryn said. He was not involved in investigations of child sex crimes.

No search warrants were served at the department, and equipment was not seized during the investigation.

Assistant U. S. Attorney Joey Blanch in Los Angeles said she did not know whether Goossens or the other two men had accessed child pornography at work.

The men were among more than two dozen people arrested over the past several months accused of using peer-to-peer file-sharing software to trade and view child pornography images and video, according to FBI officials.

Peer-to-peer programs, such as Limewire or BitTorrent, allow computer users to share music, videos, movies, images or software over the Internet —usually among strangers.

Investigators have been using technology over the past several months to track where the pornography was being stored and shared.

Blanch said Tuesday that more cases related to illegal file sharing could be expected at the federal and local levels.

“We’ve known forever that for as long as peer-to-peer has been out there people have been misusing it to trade child pornography,” Blanch said about the file-sharing software.

Neubauer had worked as a temporary carrier at the Pismo Beach post office since October 2006, but is no longer employed there because of the investigation, said Richard Maher, spokesman for the U. S. Postal Service.

Maher noted that all employees undergo background checks and that a prospective employee would not have been hired if he or she had a criminal history related to child pornography.

Neubauer did not have access to computers at work and was not working with children, he added.

“We had no idea of this,” Maher said about the investigation. He learned of the allegations shortly before Neubauer’s arrest on Monday near the post office.

Arnold was arrested Tuesday at his home in Grover Beach, Eimiller said.

He was a construction worker and did not have a criminal history in San Luis Obispo County, according to a search of court records dating to the 1980s. The same records showed that Goossens and Neubauer also did not have a criminal history.

None of the men was a registered sex offender or had a criminal history for child sex offenses, Blanch said.

No other people from this county are suspected of being involved in the case, Eimiller said.

Some of the 55 men arrested were also charged with production of child pornography and committing crimes while registered as sex offenders. Some of those charged or indicted are suspected of viewing pornography of toddlers.

Blanch said the three men arrested locally allegedly viewed images of children under 12. She declined to comment on how many pictures each man allegedly accessed or for how long they had been downloading the images.

Blanch said people arrested on child pornography charges often have no criminal history.