A man has been bound to the grand jury after lawmen allegedly found child pornography on his computer.
The suspect, Matthew Daniel Butterfield, 28, is charged with aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor.
The charges come after sheriff’s investigators came into possession of a jump drive. The circumstances of how they got the jump drive have not been revealed. A laptop was obtained when they came to his residence to investigate after looking at the contents of the jump drive. The external data storage stick, along with a laptop computer reportedly belonging to Butterfield, were sent to the TBI for analysis.
“There were in excess of 600 images the TBI considered to be child pornography,” testified sheriff’s investigator Jason Rowland during Butterfield’s preliminary hearing. “There were also over 100 on the laptop computer.”
The images reportedly showed underage persons involved in sexual activity. There is no allegation the pictures were taken by Butterfield, or that there are local children in the photos.
Butterfield’s defense questioned how lawmen know the images belong to their client. Rowland revealed Butterfield admitted to owning the laptop. Rowland also said he found a file in the zip drive labeled “me xxx” which contained the illegal images and pictures of Butterfield.
The defense wondered who else had access to the computer, suggesting the pornography could have belonged to someone else.
General Sessions Judge Bill Locke went ahead and bound the case over to the grand jury but noted there was likely not enough for a conviction based on the limited information he had heard.
“It wasn’t above reasonable doubt today,” Locke said, pointing out he did find probable cause to bind the case.