Local man charged with possession of child porn and lewd conduct with a minor
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IDAHO FALLS — A local man has been arrested and charged with possessing explicit content involving children and lewd conduct with a minor.
Luke Birch, 24, was charged with 10 felony counts of possessing child sexually exploitative materials and one felony count of lewd conduct with a child under the age of 16.
If he is found guilty, Birch faces up to life in prison.
Birch was arrested during a traffic stop on June 26.
In April, court documents say a detective began investigating cybertips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A cloud server company reported a user was uploading explicit content to their servers.
In total, 18 videos were uploaded on April 1. Five of the videos were mentioned in the cybertip, which, court documents say, featured girls between the ages of five and 14 in sexual situations.
The cloud server company provided a phone number, which led back to Birch.
Birch was identified as being associated with over 30 other cybertips, which involved 140 images or videos. Four thousand explicit images were found on Birch’s account. There were another 12 videos of sexually explicit hentai cartoon and artificial intelligence videos.
Officers later determined Birch was a suspect in a case where he allegedly had sex with a 14-year-old girl.
The document details text messages between Birch and the victim.
The messages go back and forth, where Birch was asking the victim to find him a girl between 14 and 15 years of age.
Two videos were found showing the victim performing oral sex on a man, which Birch claimed was another individual he picked up.
Court records indicate Birch admitted to looking at child porn. He reportedly denied any lewd conduct had occurred. He allegedly told the detective he was asleep when it happened and requested an attorney.
When asked what percentage of the images are child porn, Birch said about 35%. He reportedly got the images from Telegram but denied ever uploading sexually explicit content to get more images from that app.
Birch is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on July 8 at 1 p.m. before Magistrate Judge Jason Walker.
Though Birch has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.