BRENTWOOD - Two local men have been indicted on charges of possessing child pornography as part of a statewide sweep last spring that ended with more than a dozen arrests.
Charles Shuh, 63, of Rockrimmon Road in Kingston and Ryan St. Jean, 19, of Hampstead both face three counts of child pornography handed down by a Rockingham County grand jury. A third local man caught in the sweep, David Curtis, 42, of Derry was indicted last year and intends to plead guilty, according to court documents.
Yesterday's indictments come eight months after the state attorney general made public a monthslong investigation into the trading of photos and videos of child sexual abuse. Police executed 40 search warrants and filed nine juvenile petitions during the investigation.
Police found three files on Shuh's home computer which were downloaded between October 2006 and February 2007. Three files of child pornography also were found on St. Jean's computer on Feb. 28, according to the indictments.
Assistant County Attorney Brad Bolton said the cases against Shuh and St. Jean are not related, but were both investigated by the Northern New England Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
The group has 20 law enforcement agencies, including several local police departments, county sheriffs, state police and members of the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Postal Service. Derry and Pelham have officers on the task force.
As part of last year's sweep, task force investigators used techniques that allow them to backtrack how child pornography is saved on a personal computer.
"They find these computers, who owns them," Bolton said.
The cases are also built upon who had possession or access to the computer when the pornography was allegedly downloaded.
One such technique includes being able to backtrack pictures and videos of child pornography that are being shared on peer-to-peer computer networks, according to police.
Such programs are better known to computer users for downloading music or photographs. Yet in recent years, they also have become a favorite method for users and creators of child pornography, said Keene police Detective James McLaughlin, who has investigated thousands of child pornography cases.
McLaughlin was the first in New Hampshire to develop a task force that focused on child pornography and soliciting minors online in the 1990s. Years before that, he used to track child pornographers who would exchange photos by mail.
Charles Shuh, 63, of Rockrimmon Road in Kingston and Ryan St. Jean, 19, of Hampstead both face three counts of child pornography handed down by a Rockingham County grand jury. A third local man caught in the sweep, David Curtis, 42, of Derry was indicted last year and intends to plead guilty, according to court documents.
Yesterday's indictments come eight months after the state attorney general made public a monthslong investigation into the trading of photos and videos of child sexual abuse. Police executed 40 search warrants and filed nine juvenile petitions during the investigation.
Police found three files on Shuh's home computer which were downloaded between October 2006 and February 2007. Three files of child pornography also were found on St. Jean's computer on Feb. 28, according to the indictments.
Assistant County Attorney Brad Bolton said the cases against Shuh and St. Jean are not related, but were both investigated by the Northern New England Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
The group has 20 law enforcement agencies, including several local police departments, county sheriffs, state police and members of the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Postal Service. Derry and Pelham have officers on the task force.
As part of last year's sweep, task force investigators used techniques that allow them to backtrack how child pornography is saved on a personal computer.
"They find these computers, who owns them," Bolton said.
The cases are also built upon who had possession or access to the computer when the pornography was allegedly downloaded.
One such technique includes being able to backtrack pictures and videos of child pornography that are being shared on peer-to-peer computer networks, according to police.
Such programs are better known to computer users for downloading music or photographs. Yet in recent years, they also have become a favorite method for users and creators of child pornography, said Keene police Detective James McLaughlin, who has investigated thousands of child pornography cases.
McLaughlin was the first in New Hampshire to develop a task force that focused on child pornography and soliciting minors online in the 1990s. Years before that, he used to track child pornographers who would exchange photos by mail.
These days, he said, the peer-to-peer usage has proven to become a popular method. Investigators don't know exactly why.
"It's been around for some period of time," McLaughlin said. "People who share child pornography embrace new technology rather quickly."
He said some collectors of child pornography may be turning to the networks to help them complete a collection of photos or find a very specific act.
"They find that peer-to-peer works best for them, but it also increases their risk of detection," he said.
McLaughlin said it's nearly impossible to gauge the number of child pornographers using such technology. It's also not known if such easy trading has created more users of child pornography, he said.
"I can tell you this," he said. "When I first started to go online in the mid-'90s compared to now, I don't see any discernible difference with the numbers of people. And that's frustrating to say from a law enforcement perspective."
Both Shuh and St. Jean will be arraigned later this month in Rockingham County Superior Court. The charges are Class B felonies; if convicted, they could be sentenced to three and a half to seven years in state prison.
