Marshfield Man Appears in Wood County Court for Possession of Child Pornography
Monday, April 21st, 2014 -- 5:31 PM
-A Marshfield man appeared in Wood County Court on Monday for possession of child pornography.Back in October of 2013, investigators executed a search warrant on the home of 37-year-old Steven Stauber Jr. Investigators found hundreds of images and videos of nude children on Stauber?s computer, external hard drives and jump drives.
Detective Jason Parks of the Marshfield Police Department said, during the preliminary hearing, that the investigation started when Parks downloaded a torrent file from the internet connection at Stauber?s home.
Investigators said that Stauber had a program on his computer that would hide his IP address by using peer-to-peer file sharing programs like free net installer, youtorrent and more. This would conceal his computer?s location, his identity and address. He would then openly search for child porn using the Google search engine. He would also search images from an LS Magazine, that originates from the Ukraine, that would allegedly exploit underage children. The magazine was shut down a few years ago.
Detective Parks said that the images he found on the computer contained images of pre-pubescent females engaging in sexual activity. Some were even identified by a police department in Washington as missing and exploited children. Stauber did admit to Parks that he used his computer to download pornographic videos, but he never admitted to downloading child pornography.
In the end, probable cause was found and the case will proceed in the courts. Stauber has five counts of possessing child pornography filed against him. Stauber is free on a $10,000 signature bond.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.