Summit Hill man admits to child pornography charges

A Summit Hill man admitted to child pornography charges on Thursday in Carbon County court.

Michael V. Perez, 24, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse of children and 11 counts of disseminating photo/film of child sex acts. He was originally charged with 44 criminal counts. All the counts are felonies. The case is being prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s office.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by agents of the AG office, officials received a tip on Aug. 27, 2018, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Dropbox Inc. had reported several suggestive images and videos that appeared to be child pornography, involving both boys and girls as young as 8, had been uploaded to an account, later discovered to be registered to Perez.

In addition, three videos of the same nature had also been uploaded and were available to the public.

On Oct. 16, following a request for customer information from Dropbox, the state learned that the account had been used since December 2015.

On Jan. 11, 2018, law enforcement conducted surveillance of his home, and on Jan. 30, a search warrant was issued.

Agents of the AG, Homeland Security Investigations and state police executed the warrant and identified Perez as the sole user for the account in question.

Perez agreed to speak with officers and admitted using the Dropbox account in 2015, but hadn’t used it in a while.

He also said he uses a social media application and internet groups to trade pictures of girls in bikinis.

When asked why he doesn’t use Dropbox anymore, Perez said that it had been disabled by Dropbox because someone shared questionable pictures to his account.

Perez then admitted that he has viewed child pornography, beginning around 2014 or 2015, for his own pleasure and that the children in the photos or videos were as young as 11.

Agents then examined Perez’s cellphone and found files that showed the Dropbox account had been used on his phone.

A search of Perez’s Dropbox account also found hundreds of images and videos of children as young as 5 engaging in sexual acts.

President Judge Roger N. Nanovic II accepted the pleas but deferred sentencing since the charges fall under the provisions of Megan’s Law. The state sexual offenders assessment board will determine if Perez is a violent sexual predator. If it is determined that he is, then he will have to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life. Nanovic also ordered the adult probation office to prepare a presentence investigation report.

Perez faces a substantial state prison term at the time of sentencing. He has been an inmate in the county prison since his arrest last year, unable to post bail.