How the Fox News Producer Got Busted for Child Porn
Gawker has obtained the criminal complaint and arrest warrant filed by federal prosecutors against Fox News producer Aaron Bruns, including the affidavit of the detective who investigated him. Here's how they say it went down.
Last November, Robert Erdely, a Pennsylvania policeman, used standard file-sharing software to find child porn available on peer-to-peer networks. He found some files on a computer later shown to belong to Bruns, and notified a joint task force run by the FBI and the District's Metropolitan Police Department, a group which included Det. Timothy Palchak.
On January 16, Palchak applied for a warrant to search Bruns's residence, an apartment in northwest Washington. The warrant was approved, and a week later, members of the task force searched Bruns's apartment at 8:15 in the morning. Bruns was there at the time.
FBI agents and police officers found computers, hard drives, and CDs. A Dell Inspiron laptop contained digital photos and movies "depicting children under the age of ten being sexually abused by adult men and women," according to Palchak's affidavit. Bruns had also taken naked pictures of himself.
Here are the documents themselves, minus descriptions of the files. They are vile beyond all belief, utterly beyond the pale.
Update: Bruns appeared in court today, and has another hearing on Thursday. FishbowlDC notes that Bruns dropped out of the University of Michigan in 1999 after being arrested for distributing child pornography. A Michigan Daily story published that year details his arrest.