Pocatello man faces new child porn charges after jury finds him guilty in separate case involving explicit content
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POCATELLO — After a jury finds a local man guilty for possessing child porn, he has been charged again with five new felony counts stemming from the same incident.
Noah Parker Rupe, 21, was charged with four felony counts of possession of child porn and one felony count of child sexual exploitation.
The charges stemmed from a prior case in 2023 in which, after a one-day jury trial, he was found guilty of two felony counts of possession child porn.
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According to the complaint in the most recent case, Rupe is alleged to have had explicit images of four girls, with the youngest being 13 years old, in his possession. It goes on to allege that Rupe had also sexually exploited the 13-year-old girl by having her make the explicit content.
Three of the victims in his recent case were part of Rupe’s initial case in 2023. However, the charges related to these victims were dropped from Rupe’s first case after his charges were amended.
The probable cause document in Rupe’s recent case is the same as his first case, but states in a report to the Pocatello Police Department that a 14-year-old’s friend had been sharing nude pictures with Rupe, who was 18 at the time.
An officer spoke with the 14-year-old’s friend, who denied the allegation, but a different witness told the officer she saw the nude images sent to Rupe.
A search warrant was obtained for Rupe’s Snapchat account and was received by the officer on Dec. 16.
The officer retrieved 2.8 gigabytes of data from the Snapchat account, which included 2,985 items consisting of text conversations, audio, and various pieces of media.
The document states that 31 of the items were nude images and videos from nine different accounts. The officer reported that three of the accounts belonged to minors.
However, 37 different Snapchat accounts were found between Rupe and several other girls. The document states that many of the girls were from Pocatello, Idaho Falls, and Washington.
It states one of the girls, who was 16 at the time of the incident, had sent nude images of herself to Rupe. When the officer asked why, she told him she “felt pressured” to send them. The document states Rupe had sent the 16-year-old a picture of his genitalia, and she had requested him to stop.
If Rupe is found guilty, he faces up to 70 years in prison.
He is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Aaron Thompson at 1:30 p.m. on June 11 for a preliminary hearing.
Though Rupe has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.