More charges possible for IMPD sergeant caught with child pornography – Indianapolis News | Indiana Weather | Indiana traffic

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The investigation into an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department sergeant caught with child pornography is just beginning, the Marion County District Attorney said Thursday.

A judge read the 14 charges — 13 counts of felony child exploitation and one count of possession of child pornography — against Javed Richards in a Marion County court Thursday as he made his first court appearance.

Prosecutor Ryan Mears told I-Team 8 the number of charges could increase depending on what they find in their investigation.

“This was a preliminary review of the phone. I didn’t do the deep dive into the phone. We haven’t dived deep into the laptop computers, and so these are all things that we have to go through to get a better understanding of what the real purpose of it all is,” the Democratic prosecutor said.

Police say Richards was caught sharing child pornography videos and images at home with others via the Kik messaging app.

Mears says law enforcement took a break in its investigation that ultimately led to Richards’ arrest.

“You have a person who was using encrypted email, encrypted apps, who was using VPN (virtual private network) to hide or effectively hide their presence on the Internet, and at some point, for whatever reason, they went from VPN to your home Wi-Fi hotspot,” the prosecutor said.

If this hadn’t happened, would Richards have faced criminal charges?

Mears said: “It’s highly unlikely. It’s incredibly unlikely, and I think that’s indicative of the challenges that people in law enforcement face every day in trying to build these cases.”

The prosecutor’s investigation will try to find out the identity of the people to whom Richards sent child pornography on Kik. If investigators can do that, they will tell law enforcement in that area so they can arrest those people.

Richards posted his $4,000 bond but will not be released from jail until he surrenders his passports and four guns.

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