Shipshewana Man Arrested A Second Time For Child Porn, Voyeurism
Shipshewana Man Arrested A Second Time For Child Porn, Voyeurism
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Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
Shipshewana Man Arrested A Second Time For Child Porn, VoyeurismA Shipshewana man is facing multiple charges after being arrested for two separate incidents.
Devan Mikel Adams, 32, Shipshewana, is charged with possession of child pornography, a Level 6 felony; and two charges of possession of child pornography, a Level 5 felony; voyeurism, a Level 6 felony; and distribution of an intimate image, a Class A misdemeanor.
He was booked into the Kosciusko County Jail at 9:51 a.m. Monday on a $25,500 preliminary bond.
Previously, he was arrested June 29, 2021, for child molesting, a Level 4 felony, and two charges of attempted child exploitation, Level 5 felonies.
According to a probable cause affidavit regarding the child pornography, on Feb. 27, 2018, Indiana State Police opened an investigation into an unknown individual who had uploaded child pornographic images to an a social networking platform account. The platform reported one uploaded image to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
There were also other cyber tips associated with the same IP (Internet Protocol) address, but upon review those were adult pornography.
An ISP detective obtained a search warrant and obtained the subscriber information to conduct a query on the IP address through publicly available records. The address was located in the Warsaw area. The detective obtained a search warrant and received subscriber information, which returned to Adams.
The detective went to Adams’ residence in April 2018 but no one was home at the time. The detective later spoke with Adams over the phone. When asked if he had the social networking platform account, Adams said he didn’t know what that was. Adams did allegedly verify he was the account owner of the email address used.
Adams allegedly admitted to viewing adult pornography, but said if someone sent him images of younger people, he would delete it.
The detective heard a female voice in the background and Adams abruptly ended the conversation. The detective did not speak to Adams further and the investigation remained open.
In July 2021, the detective spoke with a Warsaw Police Department officer who opened an investigation into Adams for child molestation and child exploitation. The detective examined the two images from the original cyber tips with the officer and the officer did not recognize the subjects of the photos as being related to related to the WPD investigation.
On July 16, 2021, officers met with Adams and read him his Miranda rights. Adams said he had an adult pornography folder with a couple being child pornography files. One of the officers asked Adams where he would have gotten the images and Adams said on an app called Kik. Adams said he had since deleted that account. He also allegedly admitted to having a social networking platform account in 2018 and he thought he deleted it after speaking to the detective in 2018.
During the interview, Adams said the youngest he looks at is 16 years old. The detective showed Adams the images described in the report and Adams allegedly stated he had seen the image and signed the copy of the image. Adams said he may have seen the second image, but was not positive.
The detective then spoke to a woman who remembered talking to Adams over the phone in 2018. She said after the phone call between Adams and the detective in 2018, Adams told the woman to get rid of his laptop and put internet monitoring on his devices. The woman said she destroyed the devices and she provided a laptop computer as part of the investigation.
A forensic report was done. Approximately 950 videos were recovered from the device but no videos obvious of child exploitation was observed. Twenty-five images of possible child sexual abuse materials were found.
According to a second probable cause affidavit regarding voyeurism and the distribution of an intimate image, during an investigation of child molesting and child exploitation, Adams was interviewed in June 2021. During the interview, Adams told WPD officers he had taken numerous secret video recordings of a woman, which included one he had on his phone at the time taken a couple weeks prior. Adams said he would take a video every four or five months. Adams also said he would hide the phone camera in the bathroom in a bathtub wire basket/hold without the woman’s knowledge.
Adams also allegedly admitted to posting these nude images on the internet on photo and video sharing websites without the woman’s knowledge or permission.
He allegedly said he didn’t know why he did it, but it was probably the sneaky aspect of doing it that motivated him. He said he liked what people said about the woman.
When asked when the last time he accessed one of the websites, he said it was a couple days prior to the interview. He allegedly said he knew it was wrong to upload the woman’s images.
During the investigation, officers accessed the online accounts belonging to Adams and located full nude images of the woman that were distributed by Adams.
The woman was interviewed about the images and she said at no time did she give Adams permission to record her in the bathroom or post images of her on the internet.
In May 2022, the woman contacted WPD to report additional intimate photos had been located on the internet. An officer went to the website and located the photos. They had been posted on an account name that matched another account name previously provided by Adams in 2021. The website was not one of the three websites provided to officers by Adams in 2021. The officer saw the website account has been accessed as recently as May 14, 2022, and had a wedding photo of the woman posted on March 30, 2022.
