A 38-year-old Blackfoot man faces felony charges after investigators find explicit content of children on laptop
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BLACKFOOT — A month-long investigation by Idaho’s Internet Crimes Against Children’s Task Force resulted in the arrest of a 38-year-old Blackfoot man who allegedly had explicit content of children.
Joshua Michael Lehman has been charged with two felony counts of possession of sexual exploitation of a child. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
Idaho’s Crime Repository website lists Lehman’s defense attorney as John Malek, and EastIdahoNews.com has reached out for comment but has not yet heard back. We will update the story if a comment is provided.
According to the police booking affidavit, on April 20, a cybertip was filed by Synchronoss Technologies, a cloud service provider for Verizon Wireless, to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
A subpoena was sent to an Internet Service Provider for an Internet Protocol address that was associated with the tip.
The information obtained through the subpoena included Lehman’s name and address. A phone number was also given that matched the one in the tip.
The document discusses the content that was uploaded to the cloud service, which shows girls from the ages of 2 to 15 being sexually abused and raped.
A subpoena was sent to Verizon for the phone number in the cybertip, and was returned on May 11.
A search of what was given by Verizon resulted in detectives with ICAC finding 247 images and videos of explicit videos involving children. Many of the images were screenshots of content uploaded to the cloud-based service.
On May 21, members of the ICAC, Shelley Police Department, Blackfoot Police Department, Idaho Falls Police Department, Homeland Security, and the Sheriff’s Offices of Bingham and Madison counties assisted in executing a search warrant at Lehman’s residence.
Lehman was interviewed and questioned about the confirmed phone number and email address being his.
Detectives told Lehman about the uploaded images and the submitted report regarding the content.
Lehman told detectives that when he looks at porn, he finds images of girls that look as close to 18 as possible, and uses an online anonymous image-based bulletin board.
When asked by the detectives if he had seen images of naked children, Lehman responded that he had found images on websites, but never downloaded any.
When told about the explicit content that was found, Lehman told detectives that he wanted an attorney.
Lehman’s two felony charges stem from two videos that were found on a laptop that was found during the search warrant.
The two videos involve girls between the ages of 5 and 9 being sexually abused.
Lehman was arrested and booked into the Bingham County Jail.
He is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing at 8:30 a.m. on June 4 before Magistrate Judge Scott Andrew.
Though Lehman has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.