Rochester Man Faces Child Pornography Charge

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Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - A 58-year-old Rochester man has been charged with possession of child pornography.

The criminal complaint against Kevin James Hammell was filed Friday in Olmsted County Court. It indicates the charge against him is based on an investigation that was launched in early March after the Rochester Police Department received a cyber tip concerning 20 images of suspected child sexual abuse material. The tip came from Adobe, which identified Hammell as the subscriber of the account connected to the child pornography.

That led to a search warrant being executed at Hammell's Southwest Rochester home last Thursday. The court document says Hammell had left the residence and was pulled over by a Rochester Police investigator and was informed of the search warrant. After being read his Miranda rights, the criminal complaint says Hammell spoke with the investigator and initially denied viewing child pornography on the Internet but later stated he could have stumbled across it.

He also told investigators he used a Tor browser, which can make it difficult to track his Internet activity. The charges say Hammell eventually admitted going to a specific website to obtain child sexual abuse material, which he would download onto a USB storage device and then delete it.

The criminal complaint says police investigators found numerous video files of child pornography involving girls 8 to 10 years old on a USB drive from Hammell's home. It is also alleged that sexually explicit images of a 6 to 8-year-old-year-old were uploaded to Hammell's Adobe account last November.

Hammell was arraigned on the charge Friday morning and was released with conditions but without bail. He is scheduled to make his next appearance in Olmsted County Court on April 18th.