Bedford man arrested on child exploitation and possession of child pornography charges

BEDFORD – A Bedford man was arrested Friday on charges of child exploitation and possession of child pornography.

Bloomington Police officer arrested 68-year-old Michael Stephens.

According to a probable cause affidavit, "during the month of October 2022, specifically on October 17, 2022, Stephens committed the offenses in Lawrence County of knowingly and intentionally disseminated and possessed with intent to disseminate images that depicted and described sexual conduct by a child less than 12-years of age, committing Child Exploitation, Level 4 felony due to being under 12-years of age and knowingly and intentionally with the intent to view possessed images that depicted sexual conduct by children under the age of 12-years old, committed possession of child pornography, a Level 5 felony due to being under 12-years of age."

On October 25, 2022, investigators began their investigation after an internet complaint. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) received internet complaints from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). This complaint was received by NCMEC on October 23, 2022, at 10:06 a.m. The images

The submitter of this complaint to NCMEC was identified as WhatsApp Inc. The social media platform identified WhatsApp as an internationally available freeware, cross-platform centralized instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service. It allows users to send text and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp application runs on mobile devices and can be accessed from computers. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to sign up.

WhatsApp was able to provide investigators with the possible suspect's information. That information led to the arrest of Stephens after police found four images of illegal sexual activity with very young underage males.

Those images were traced back to Stephens's IP address at 1921 Stevens Lane.

Police say Stephens was sending large amounts of messages with media files attached, along with receiving messages/media files from other users as well.

On November 11, 2022, detectives with the Bloomington Police Department, being assisted by the detective division, along with uniform officers of the Bedford Police Department went to the address of 1921 Steven Ave. Apt 170, to execute a search warrant.

Stephens was asked when the last time he had viewed child pornography was, which he stated at approximately 7:00 that morning, prior to him going to sleep. Michael told me that he used the social media application identified as "Viper" lately to view child pornography. Michael initially stated that he had been viewing child pornography for 2-3 years, then he later changed that to 10-12 years.

Stephens did confirm he did view child pornography on WhatsApp. He then confessed to receiving child pornography from others online, and also to distributing images of child pornography to others by means of the internet. He said he uses his cell phone to conduct this activity. He admitted to having approximately 25 images of child pornography currently on his phone. He then requested to speak to an attorney.

Officers seized two cell phones and Stephens was transported to the Lawrence County Jail.