A Little Rock man was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges of trying to purchase a child, as well as two counts of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography.
The grand jury charged Jeremy Campbell, 42, in an investigation that court documents show began in July when a woman in Corinth, Miss., contacted police about two photographs she received from a Little Rock man with whom she exchanged messages through an app on her phone.
According to an FBI agent's affidavit, one photograph was of a prepubescent girl and the other of an infant girl, both of whom were being raped by a man.
On Sept. 19, law enforcement officers tracked the address of the subscriber to Campbell's Lancaster Road apartment, the affidavit said. Police in Corinth then forwarded the information to a Little Rock police investigator, Amber Kalmer, who was able to identify the person living at the address as Campbell, a registered sex offender.
Campbell had pleaded guilty in 2004 to committing lewd or indecent acts with a child and sodomy for which he received four years and six years in prison, the affidavit said.
Police searched Campbell's apartment on Nov. 1 under a federal search warrant and found no child pornography, but officers seized electronics for testing.
Then in January, according to the affidavit, Kalmer reported receiving a call from a man who had talked with another man through the KIK app "who wanted to rent or adopt a child and would pay $500 so he could 'groom' the child to 'be a lover.'"
The man seeking a child included a photo of himself, and Kalmer matched the online address and the photograph to Campbell, the FBI agent's affidavit said.
In February, the affidavit said, KIK notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a user had shared 19 child pornography files over the KIK network.
Meanwhile, the affidavit said, Campbell was arrested March 26 for residential burglary and harassment, for walking into a neighbor's house, picking up her child and kissing her. The officers who took the report forwarded the information to Kalmer, who contacted the FBI.
In a search warrant of Campbell's apartment in April, a laptop found next to his bed contained child pornography, the affidavit said.
It said Campbell admitted to having viewed child pornography but denied trying to buy a child. It noted that he admitted creating the name through which the request was sent, however.
Court documents show that Campbell was arrested on a warrant issued April 10 by a federal magistrate judge. He was held until a federal grand jury could review his case this week, and he remains in custody.
Metro on 06/04/2020