Two West Lafayette men sentenced for child porn

HAMMOND, Ind. (WLFI) - Two West Lafayette men were sentenced today for various crimes linked to child pornography.

23-year-old Blake Titus and 29-year-old Carl Agnew, both of West Lafayette, were included in a list of men sentenced by the United States Attorney’s Office for child porn.

Titus was sentenced by Senior District Judge Rudy Lozano to 240 months imprisonment and lifetime supervised release after pleading guilty to a felony offense of distribution of child pornography.

According to court documents filed by the government in this case, law enforcement, using a peer-to-peer file sharing program via an Internet-connected computer, observed an individual sharing files that had titles indicative of child pornography.

A subpoena served on the Internet service provider revealed that the IP address was assigned to Titus. A search warrant was executed that revealed roughly 10 to 20 images and at least 100 videos depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct on a laptop and an external hard drive belonging to Titus.

This case resulted from an investigation by members of the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Highland Police Department, the Kokomo City Police Department, the Brownsburg Police Department and Indiana State Police. This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jill Koster.

Agnew was sentenced by Chief Judge Philip Simon to 120 months imprisonment and 20 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to the felony offenses of possession and distribution of child pornography.

According to court documents, an agent member of the Cyber Crime Task Force located in Kansas City, Mo., launched the peer-to-peer program that queried a network of users logged in at the time. One user who used the name “Brighteyedboy” was logged into the network.

The agent proceeded to browse Brighteyedboy’s shared directories and previewed image files being shared by Brighteyedboy. The agent selected 235 files and found 196 of them had images depicting child pornography.

An administrative subpoena served on the Internet provider produced documentation identifying Agnew as the user. A search warrant at Agnew’s residence resulted in forensic examiners finding more 6,000 images and more than 600 videos depicting child pornography on his computer equipment.

This case resulted from an investigation by members of the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Kokomo Police Department and the Indiana State Police. This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jill Koster.