A Kenton County jury Wednesday convicted Daniel Alexander Arenas, 26, of Covington, on five counts of Viewing Matter Portraying a Sexual Performance by a Minor.
Arenas
The same jury then recommended that Arenas, 26, spend a decade in prison for the offenses. Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders said this case was unusual in that most defendants are charged with possessing images of child pornography, however, police did not find any illicit images in Arenas’ possession. Instead, police used Arenas’s search history and internet history to prove he was viewing sexually explicit images of children.
The case began on August 3, 2018, when a Ft. Thomas woman reported to Covington Police that she located links to child pornography on the cell phone of Arenas, her then-boyfriend.
The woman explained she went through Arenas’s recent phone history due to trust issues, but was surprised when she found an internet history containing searches for and links to “illegal cp” and “preteen girls panties xx videos.”
The woman took photos of Arenas’s web history and screenshots of their text message conversations in which she confronted him with what she’d found. In those messages, Arenas agreed what he’d done could be considered child abuse, but tried to explain to her that “it was the wrongness of it” that made him look at the websites rather than a sexual attraction to children.
Covington Police Detective Rob Fain was assigned to investigate and responded, along with Detective Austin Ross, to Arenas’s residence in Covington where the detectives seized his cell phone.
Subsequent search of the cell phone revealed hundreds of pages of internet searches and web history, including obvious searches for child pornography images such as “***shot Snapchat middle school” and “***shot Snapchat 14 year old.” Detective Fain visited the websites contained in Arenas’s cell phone web history, and confirmed that multiple websites contained graphic child pornography.
Sanders
A two-day jury trial began August 27, 2019 before Judge Kathleen Lape in the First Division of the Kenton Circuit Court.
The jury heard from the former girlfriend, Covington Police Computer Forensic Analyst Ron Trenkamp, and Detective Fain. The defense argued that although the websites contained apparent child pornography at the time Detective Fain investigated them, the jury couldn’t be sure what the websites contained when Arenas accessed them.
After approximately two hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Arenas of five counts of Viewing Matter Portraying a Sexual Performance by a Minor. The jury then recommended a total sentence of 10 years. Upon release, Arenas will have to register as a sex offender for life. Formal final sentencing is scheduled for October 14, 2019.
Asst. Commonwealth’s Attorney Emily J. Arnzen, who prosecuted the case, said prosecuting ‘viewing’ child pornography, as opposed to ‘possession,’ will always be a challenge.
“Defendants are bound to claim the websites weren’t illegal at the time they were viewed, just like this one did,” Arnzen said. “In fact, the websites in question had been removed from the internet by the time this case went to trial. Arnzen said “Viewing child porn is no less of a crime because it still creates a demand for these disgusting images and videos, and so long as there is a demand, young children will still be victimized and robbed of their innocence.”
Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney
