Posted on 09/20/2024 1:10:43 PM PDT by Morgana
Small town Arkansas Pastor Rocky Goodwin is facing 10 felony charges, which include distributing, possessing, and viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child.
Editor’s note: This article contains details about child sex abuse that some readers might find disturbing and/or triggering.
Goodwin, 86, is the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Warren, Arkansas.
According to the affidavit for the warrant of arrest, an Arkansas State Police (ASP) special agent started investigating Goodwin in 2023 after receiving a tip from Lenore Paladino, an analyst for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.
Paladino was alerted when Microsoft reported Goodwin “for violation of terms of service for using Bing reverse image search to upload an image of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) to his account in order to receive other Bing image search results of similar CSAM material on May 23, 2023.”
In the months that followed, agents were alerted to two more incidents of CSAM from Goodwin’s internet address. Through the investigation, the agent concluded that the images were being viewed from inside Goodwin’s residence.
On May 3, ASP Criminal Investigation Division agents executed a search warrant at Goodwin’s residence and seized “several digital devices,” including a laptop that possessed compressed zip files that were labeled with “sexually graphic” descriptions. One of the files was labeled “12 year old girl.”
On June 20, after obtaining a search warrant to examine Goodwin’s laptop, investigators found 71 images of CSAM on the hard drive.
Goodwin “denied any knowledge of the Child Sexual Abuse Material” that was taken from his residence and “denied operating the laptop” in an “illegal manner.” Goodwin also told agents that “he knew no other person that could have had access” to his laptop.
The charges against Goodwin were filed on Sept. 16.
Goodwin’s lawyer told reporters that the allegations against Goodwin are “false” and that he and Goodwin are “looking forward to Mr. Goodwin’s day in court and are confident that he will be exonerated.”
Goodwin is still listed as the pastor on Calvary Baptist Church’s website and, according THV11 News, could still be seen preaching via the church’s Facebook livestream. The Facebook page has since been deactivated. The church’s website has also been taken down.
If found guilty, Goodwin faces up to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. Goodwin is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 28 in Bradley County.
ChurchLeaders has reached out to Calvary Baptist Church and will update this article in the event of a response.
Calling all anti-Catholic Freeper bigots!
I’d have to investigate it further. I might want more than Microsoft’s word (pun intended), given their anti-Christian lobbying. Maybe if the ISP can confirm.
I was waiting for someone to notice that.
“for violation of terms of service for using Bing reverse image search to upload an image of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) to his account in order to receive other Bing image search results of similar CSAM material on May 23, 2023.” “
So you techno geeks here tell the class what this guy was doing that got him caught?
Obviously someone that doesn’t believe in Heaven or Hell or even God and His judgement for that matter. He should be one of those folks that gets down on his knees every night and pray there is no Hell.
Ping
From what I can tell it's what it sounds like. But it's at best an 80% accurate detection and required further, unfortunately more manual, investigation to be sure. Microsoft's CSAM algorithm looks at the images he was supposedly uploading and generates a score on the probability that the image involves minors and involves sex. The CSAM algorithm saw some pictures that made it get attention.
The article doesn't state if someone actually reviewed the images to see if it it was truly bad stuff, if the destination was some dark web location to swap child porn, or if it was just something innocent like his wife wanting him to send to the family on FB some photos of their grandkid's first bath. Another possibility is it was sexual sin (thus grounds for firing from church), but not minors (thus not illegal, like if it was nude wrinkled middle aged women but with their hair in pony tails that the CSAM algorithm mistook for minors). It's also possible that there was no nudity at all but the CSAM algorithm mistakenly flagged the images as worthy of attention.
Without more details, I hate to rush to judgement on fellow Christians in a world that's already running against them.
“just something innocent like his wife wanting him to send to the family on FB some photos of their grandkid’s first bath.”
Couldn’t something like that be cleared up at the police station?
Yes I do agree with you that is something innocent however in this day and age? Don’t post stuff like that and I mean DON’T. I’m not saying this guy is whack but others are. Every picture you post of your kids can and do get stolen by perverts. Those creeps that used to take pics of kids in the park? They just steal images off line now.
People are evil
This title looks like it was created by a random word generator. Maybe I’m missing something, but it’s very confusing.
Keep in mind that this is about an 86-year old pastor. He may not be hip to what's safe with internet communications "in this day and age".
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