SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah, Nov. 24, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — A Salt Lake County man has been arrested for allegedly possessing videos depicting child pornography.
A probable cause statement from the 3rd District Court of Salt Lake City said Garland Troynell Epps, 45, is facing 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.
The probable cause statement said that on Aug. 5 of this year, Google filed a CyberTipline report regarding an account with 15 videos of suspected child pornography uploaded to it.
Google identified the suspect user by two Gmail accounts, a cellphone number and username Garland E.
“I reviewed all the videos reported by Google and confirmed they are child pornography,” the arresting officer wrote in the statement. “I was able to identify the user of the account from the information provided by Google. The suspect user was identified as Garland Epps, residing in the Salt Lake area.”
On Sept. 17, a 3rd District Court judge of Salt Lake County reviewed and approved an electronic service provider search warrant, for the two Gmail addresses. On Oct. 1, the arresting officer received over 60 GBs of data from Google as a result of that search warrant.
“Numerous photos and videos (selfie-type) of Epps were found,” the statement said. “A large number of videos and images of child pornography were also found.”
On Nov. 20, the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children task force executed a residential search warrant at Epps’ residence in the Salt Lake area.
After being read his Miranda rights, Epps confirmed that the emails that were reported by Google belonged to him. Epps also confirmed that the reported phone number belonged to him and is his current phone number.
Epps stated that he lives alone and is the only person who accesses the reported emails, the statement said.
“When I informed Epps Google reported his email accounts and how child pornography was uploaded, he stated ‘that shouldn’t be there’ and then requested an attorney,” the statement said. “The interview ended at that point.”
The arresting officer reviewed all the evidence of child pornography that was received as a result of the search warrant to Google. The videos showed young prepubescent female children in sexual situations, the statement said.
“Epps has a young daughter that is approximately the same age of the children depicted in the videos reported by Google, where children are being raped,” the statement said.
Due to Epps having a daughter that is similar age of the children in the videos, the Utah Attorney General’s Office requested a bail of $250,000. Epps was transported to Salt Lake County Jail.
