BENNINGTON — A Bennington man free under supervised release conditions related to a prior conviction for possession of child pornography has been arrested again on similar charges following an investigation by federal and state authorities.
James Coyne, 34, of Rutter Road, was taken into custody at his parents’ residence on Dec. 2 after officials armed with a warrant conducted a search and found a cellphone with stored child pornography images and videos.
In an affidavit filed in federal court, Caitlin Moynihan, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, said the investigation stemmed from multiple reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTips hotline. Moynihan said that 44 CyberTips were reported by Microsoft in May and June to the NCMEC hotline and each was in reference to a file of suspected child pornography that had been shared via the Skype Peer-to-Peer file sharing.
She said Detective Matt Raymond, assigned to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and commander of the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, reviews any such tips believed to have ties to the state, she said, and Raymond prepared a report. As part of the CyberTip process, the NCMEC provided information on the IP [internet protocal] address associated with the 44 tips, which resolved back to Bennington, according to the affidavit.
Moynihan said Raymond subsequently obtained through a subpoena the Comcast internet account holder’s name — Richard Coyne, James Coyne’s father, in whose Rutter Road home the younger man lived.
“I recognized the last name of Coyne,” Moynihan wrote in the affidavit, “and further research indicated that the [HSI] Burlington office had previously investigated and arrested James Coyne in February 2014 for a violation of [federal child pornography statutes] … James Coyne was convicted in federal court in Vermont for possession of child pornography and sentenced in December 2014 to six months of incarceration, six months of home confinement and five years of supervised release.”
After confirming with James Coyne’s probation officer the suspect’s address and his conviction information and listing on the Sex Offender Registry, Moynihan said she and another agent drove past to observe Coyne’s residence on Aug. 9.
She also investigated an additional 20 CyberTip reports in September in reference to suspected child pornography shared via the Skype internet file sharing application in July and August. Of those, 18 resolved back to the Comcast internet service account held by Richard Coyne.
During a search of the Coyne residence on Dec. 2, Moynihan stated that James Coyne was observed placing an object on a shelf at the top of his closet, which later was determined to be a cellphone after its alarm sounded.
Coyne denied that this was his phone, she wrote, but other family members at the residence “confirmed that anything in the bedroom from which the phone was seized would only belong to James Coyne. None of the occupants of the residence recognized the cell phone as being theirs.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Burlington said that Coyne is in federal custody but has not yet been arraigned on the charges, which are “knowingly possessing” images of child pornography.
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