Poplar Bluff man accused of having child pornography

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- A Poplar Bluff man is free on bond after turning himself in Tuesday morning on a warrant charging him with possessing child pornography.

Coy Delaney Alspaugh, 51, of the 200 block of County Road 527, surrendered at about 10:15 a.m. to Poplar Bluff Police Detective Jeff Shackelford.

Alspaugh, who was booked at the Butler County Jail and released after posting a $10,000 bond, was charged Monday with felony of possession of child pornography by Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour.

The complaint on file with the court alleges on May 5 Alspaugh "knowing its contents and character, possessed obscene material, consisting of video files depicting females being sexually assaulted, forced to have sexual intercourse, and performing oral sex on unknown adult males and other prepubescent males," and said video files portrayed "what appears to be a person under the age of 14 years as a participant of sexual conduct."

The charge against Alspaugh is the result of an investigation by Shackelford, who is commander of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force, and Scott Phelps, a sergeant with the Butler County Sheriff's Department and task force investigator.

"Through the use of a tracking program designed by the (Internet Crimes Against Children) Task Force to track persons collecting and trading items of child pornography through file sharing networks I was given the February 2008 database results for the state of Missouri which showed one IP address in particular in the Poplar Bluff area that had numerous transmissions (uploads/downloads) of child pornography," Shackelford explained in his probable-cause affidavit.

A trace of the Internet protocol address was conducted and the City of Poplar Bluff Municipal Utilities (City Cable) was found to be the owner, Shackelford said

"The user/subscriber information was obtained through a subpoena, and found that Bryan Alspaugh was the account holder of this Internet protocol address [through his City Cable Internet account]," Shackelford said.

When Bryan Alspaugh was interviewed, Shackelford said he learned that Alspaugh's father and brother also used the computer.

"I received consent to search this computer in a forensic examination and found numerous video and image files of child pornography and mainly all of these were of prepubescent females," said Shackelford, who interviewed Bryan Alspaugh's father, Coy Alspaugh, regarding his findings.

After being told of his rights, the elder Alspaugh agreed to talk with Shackelford.

"In this interview, Coy admitted that all the files of child pornography were his and that he had obtained these from the Internet," Shackelford said. "Most of the video files depicted females, approximately 6 to 12 years of age, and possibly younger, being sexually assaulted and forced to have sexual intercourse or perform sex on unknown males and other prepubescent males."

Alspaugh, according to Shackelford, told him he had acquired all of these files and that he had hidden the folder containing these files in the computer's file structure so that his sons or visiting friends would not see them on the computer.

"Coy stated that he knew the files were illegal, and that he acted alone in acquiring and saving of these files."