A 26-year-old Weston man is facing four felony counts of possession of child pornography.
Samuel McPherson was arrested last Wednesday after a search warrant was obtained for his residence in the 900 block of Citadel Drive in Weston. Platte County Sheriff’s Department investigators in court documents indicate McPherson was read his Miranda rights, and then admitted that he used search terms such as “underage” and “pedo,” which are terms known to law enforcement to relate to child pornography, on a program to download child porn onto his desktop computer in his bedroom.
Authorities say a scan of McPherson’s computer revealed “several files containing suspected child pornography.” Some of the files allegedly contained sexual acts performed on children younger than 10 years of age.
In the statement of probable cause, authorities say the computer IP address later found to be McPherson’s was first detected on a public file sharing network on the internet. The IP address purported to be in possession of child porn and offering to participate in the distribution of the pornography.
At that time, a subpoena was served to Road Runner, owner of the IP address in question, and it was learned the subscriber of the address on the date and time in question was the McPherson residence on Citadel, where Sam McPherson resides with his parents.
In May, the computer with the same IP address was spotted again on the network in possession of child pornography.
A search warrant was obtained and served last Wednesday, July 21 at the residence.
McPherson remains in custody in the Platte County Jail. His bond has been set at $200,000 cash-only.
At a court hearing on Friday, McPherson entered a plea of not guilty and told the court he will be represented by Scott Campbell, a Platte City attorney.
His next court appearance is Tuesday, Aug. 10 at 9 a.m. in front of Judge Thomas Fincham.