More charges possible for IMPD sergeant caught with child porn
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The investigation into an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department sergeant caught with child pornography is only beginning, the Marion County prosecutor said Thursday.
A judge on Thursday read through the 14 charges — 13 felony charges of child exploitation and a felony count of possession of child pornography — against Javed Richards in a Marion County court as he made his first court appearance.
Prosecutor Ryan Mears told I-Team 8 that the number of charges could grow depending on what they uncover in their investigation.
“This was a preliminary review of the phone. We didn’t do the deep dive into the phone. We didn’t do the deep dive into the laptop computers, and, so, those are all things that we need to go through to get a better sense of what the true scope of everything is,” the Democratic prosecutor said.
Police say Richards was caught trading child porn videos and images at home with others through the messaging app Kik.
Mears says law enforcement caught a break in its investigation that ultimately led to Richards’ arrest.
“You had an individual who was using encrypted emails, encrypted apps, using the VPN (virtual private network) to disguise or conceal their presence on the internet effectively, and, at some point in time for whatever reason, it went from the VPN to the home Wi-Fi spot,” the prosecutor said.
If that hadn’t happen, would Richards being facing criminal charges?
Mears said, “It’s very unlikely. It’s incredibly unlikely, and I think that points to the challenges that people in law enforcement deal with every day in trying to build these cases.”
The prosecutor office’s investigation will try to find out the identity of the people Richards sent child porn to on Kik. If investigators can do that, they’ll tell law enforcement in that area so they can arrest those people.
Richards has paid his $4,000 bond, but he won’t be released from jail until he turns over his passports and four guns.