Danny Federico
ECB Publishing, Inc.
A man from Branford, Fla., was arrested on Friday, Jan. 22, after a warrant for his arrest was filed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) after he committed the felony offenses of sexual performance by a child, computer pornography and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.
On Friday, Jan. 8, Special Agent April Glover with the FDLE submitted an affidavit requesting a warrant of arrest for 28-year-old Kyle Pettigrew, of Branford, after an extensive investigation following a CyberTip received in November from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
On Tuesday, Nov. 10, Glover received a CyberTip from the NCMEC in regards to a Dropbox file containing child pornography. According to the affidavit, Dropbox, a file syncing service which allows access and sharing of files through phone, computers and tablets, "became aware of apparent child pornography on the account in the name of Kyle Pettigrew, and reported it to NCMEC" on Thursday, Oct. 8.
NCMEC then created a CyberTip report and forwarded it to the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children (NFICAC). After being assigned to investigate the report, Glover reviewed the file and "deemed it child pornography according to the Florida Statues." Glover then had a subpoena served to Windstream for records associated with the IP addresses used to login, which were provided by Dropbox. The subscriber information returned a phone number which was then identified through Pettigrew's social media.
On Friday, Dec. 4, Glover "received compliance from Dropbox that was requested pursuant to a court authorized search warrant," with which she was able to identify 112 videos and images containing a female who appeared to be under the age of 18. The hash value, or unique "fingerprint" attached to each media file, of the 112 files "returned results for an 'Identified Child'." According to NCMEC, hash values returned as "Identified Child" are "associated with an image/video which appears to depict at least one child previously identified by law enforcement." Positive results for an "identified series of child pornography" were also returned after being sent through NCMEC's Child Recognition and Identification System. The affidavit states "the series was first seen by NCMEC on Dec. 5, 2017."
On Friday, Jan. 8, David W. Fina, a judge of the Circuit Court of the Third Judicial Circuit for Suwannee County, signed a warrant for Pettigrew's arrest, stating probable cause of Pettigrew having committed the felony offenses of sexual performance by a child, computer pornography and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.
Pettigrew was arrested on Friday, Jan. 22, and booked into the Suwannee County Jail on Tuesday, Jan. 26, under the charge of cruelty toward a child by use or allowance of a child to engage in sex. Pettigrew's bond is set at $155,000.
You must be logged in to post a comment.