74-year-old man allegedly tells detectives he was ‘looking at child pornography’ when they come to arrest him
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MACKAY — A 74-year-old man has been charged with multiple felonies after police say they discovered he has been downloading child pornography for over eight years.
William Lindburg is charged with 10 counts of willfully possessing or accessing child sexually exploitative material.
According to court documents, a detective with the Idaho State Police was assigned to a cybertip on March 27 from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and authorities were able to track to Lindburg’s IP address in Mackay.
The cybertip reportedly showed that Lindburg had been watching sexual content of a child between the ages of 5 and 9 years old.
On April 10, detectives conducted surveillance on Lindburg’s home and positively identified him by matching him to his DMV photo. On May 29, a search warrant was served on Lindburg at his home.
Lindburg allegedly confessed “he was looking at child pornography when (law enforcement) knocked on the door to serve the warrant.” Detectives searched the bedroom, where Lindburg reportedly told them they would find “thousands of images of child pornography.”
According to police reports, inside the bedroom, Lindburg’s desktop computer was on and was displaying images of nude children on the screen. Lindburg also told detectives about a flash drive that was connected to the back of the computer and was labeled “CP”.
On the flash drive, detectives said they found images and videos of children between the ages of 2 to 8 being raped and sexually assaulted.
Court records say Lindburg “has been viewing (child pornography) at least since 2017 based on some of the images recovered from the flash drive.”
Lindburg appeared in court for his initial appearance on Friday and was booked into the Custer County Jail on a $20,000 bond. He is expected to appear for a preliminary hearing on June 9.
If convicted, he could face up to life in prison and over $100,000 in fines.
Though Lindburg has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.