Collin Gomes, 26, of St. Croix on Thursday, November 14, 2019, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge George Cannon, Jr., to possession of child pornography, United States Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert announced. Photo: VI Consortium

According to the plea agreement filed with the court, on or about August 16, 2018, September 6, 2018 and October 22, 2018, a Grand Prarie, Texas police detective was conducting an online investigation on the BitTorrent network for offenders sharing child pornography.

IP Address was tracked 

An investigation was initiated for a device on the IP address used by the defendant because it was associated with a torrent with a particular info hash.

On each of the dates above, a download of files was successfully completed from the device that the defendant’s IP address was making available. Each download contained child pornography.

On December 14, 2018, HSI executed a search warrant on the defendant’s residence. Agents explained to the defendant what they were searching for and advised them of their rights.

The defendant waived their rights and agreed to speak to the agents. They asked if they viewed, downloaded and made available for download any files containing images or videos depicting child pornography and the defendant said “yes.”

Thousands of images & video recovered 

The defendant also told the agents they had an HP computer on which they had child pornography and that they had been downloading child pornography since 2011 and collected thousands of images and videos.

They stated that there was approximately one and a half Terabytes of material. HSI found thousands of child pornography images and videos found on the defendant’s computer and external hard drives.

Gomes faces a maximum sentence of 10 years and a $250,000 fine. A sentencing date has been set for March 18, 2020.