Crime & Safety

Albertville Man Arrested on Warrant for Possession of Child Pornography

A two-year-old complaint filed against William Scott Welch, 40, Albertville, resulted in arrest late last month.

A 40-year-old Albertville man faces multiple counts of possession of child pornography and possessing pornographic work on a computer after Wright County detectives arrested him on the execution of a search warrant in Buffalo Thursday, May 26. 

William Scott Welch, who lived in the 6100 block of Kalenda Court, was charged with more than 20 different violations for possessing illegal pornographic work. 

According to the criminal complaint, detectives from the Wright County Sheriff's Office were tipped off by Officer Dale Hanson of the Minneapolis Police Department, a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children. Hanson's report indictated that on May 15, 2009, Hanson identified an IP (Internet Protocol) address that offered a list of 42 different files for distribution. Hanson browsed those files to determine the hash values and compared those hash values to a list of known child porgnography in the ICAC database. Nineteen of the files were identified as known or suspected child porn.

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Hanson obtained an administrative subpoena, which was sent to Charter Communications for the owner of the IP address. That subpoena helped identify Welch as the subscriber, the complaint continued.

On July 1, 2009, detectives from Wright County executed a search warrant and seized several external hard drives. 

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According to the complaint, Welch, after the search and seizure, agreed to an interview with a detective. He was advised that he was not, at the time, under arrest. Welch said he lived alone at his residence on Kalenda Court, and added that he had several different memory devices in the apartment. He admitted to having "some knowledge" of computers, and using a peer-to-peer file sharing software in the past. 

Welch said he had seen pornography that contained images of girls under the age of 18, and some females were "14, 15, 16 or so," the complaint continued. He admitted he was "eroticized" by such images. 

A forensic examination by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension examined items seized from Welch's residence. Several files were found on various memory devices. 

On May 25, 2010, the complaint states, Detective Lindquist sent the files to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Three months later, NCMEC did confirm several images and videos featured children who had been identified by the organization. 

Assistant County Attorney Mark Erickson filed the complaint in December of last year, and Welch was arrested on a warrant May 26. 

Welch has made an initial appearnance. Further court dates were not available. 


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