Girl catches man looking at child porn at Marysville Library

Published 1:30 am Friday, August 17, 2018

MARYSVILLE — A Marysville man was caught watching child pornography by a girl who was trying to study in the public library, according to police reports filed in court this week.

The girl called Marysville police the evening of Jan. 23 to report she’d taken cellphone pictures of a man’s computer screen as she sat near him in the library at 6120 Grove St.

She showed her pictures to police. The photographed screen showed a thin naked girl, who looked to be in the early stages of puberty, according to police. Another picture depicted a boy being sexually abused by a man, according to the girl’s report.

The young witness described the photos as “large and in plain view.” Police approached the man, 44, who was seated in a chair at a small desk. They did not see pornographic pictures on the computer, but noted the screen was visible to anyone nearby. Officers asked the man what he’d been doing. He reportedly said he’d been looking at adult photos. He paused.

“They were teens to early 20s,” he said, according to police.

His black Dell laptop was seized, and the man was cited for unlawful display of sexually explicit material, a misdemeanor.

Jim Hills, a spokesman for Sno-Isle Libraries, said people who see something objectionable on a computer screen often will bring it to the attention of librarians, who will assess the situation.

In this case, the girl went straight to 911.

Given the circumstances in the police report, Hills said a librarian would have reached the same conclusion and also called police.

“Illegal behavior is illegal behavior,” he said.

Police obtained a search warrant to sift through the laptop’s data. In a folder titled, “Ready,” they found 162,195 files. A detective marked at least 8,680 of the files as explicit images of children.

Meanwhile, the man also was held on a request from the Department of Corrections, because he was on probation. Court records show he’d been convicted of a sex crime in 2007. He’d gone into the bedroom of a woman who was letting him stay at her home in North Bend, to sexually harass and assault her, according to court records.

His defense argued at trial the sexual contact was consensual. The woman told police she kept telling the man no, fought with him and fled to a fire station a half-block away, in only a T-shirt and a coat wrapped around her waist. A jury believed her, finding the defendant guilty of indecent liberties.

Upon his release from prison, he was required to check in with a corrections officer Tuesdays. Police showed up to his most recent check-in, after they’d reviewed evidence from the search warrant. He was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of possessing child pornography.

His bail was set Wednesday at $100,000.

Eric Stevick contributed to this report.

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.