MAY 30 – 2020
Goodridge man has been charged in Pennington County District Court after he allegedly possessed three images of child pornography.
Logan Arlen Merrill, 19, has been charged with three felony charges of possession of pornographic work involving minors. The charges pertained to three images; however, the complaint indicated that his account was tied to nine other images flagged as child pornography. He was arrested.
Merrill allegedly admitted possessing and viewing child pornography. He said he had searched for such images and saved them. Merrill also
admitted disseminating the images, but he said he was unable to recall to whom he had sent the images. He allegedly admitted searching for child
pornography for about six months and then screenshotting the images.
Merrill also admitted using another account, where he had bookmarked about 20 to 30 images of child pornography. He believed he had disseminated
about 15 to 20 images of child pornography to others.
The charges stemmed from a Tuesday, Feb. 4 report from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, according to the complaint. The complaint was signed Friday, May 22, and the Thief River Falls Police Department investigator had conducted a traffic stop on Merrill’s vehicle two days earlier. At that time, law enforcement had a search warrant for Merrill’s home, 24711 160th St. N.E. in Goodridge; the occupants and their vehicles.
In February, the BCA informed the police investigator that possible child pornography had been uploaded to Snapchat in Pennington County. She learned
that the Snapchat records custodian filed a CyberTipLine report Aug. 31, 2019. The investigator learned that the 12 files had been uploaded by an account tied to an Internet Provider address served by Garden Valley Telephone Company. Subpoenas were then issued to Garden Valley.
Merrill has been charged with allegedly possessing three images. Those images involved two photos of prepubescent females exposing their vaginas and a third image of a female, naked from the waist down, holding what appeared to be a penis. The other nine images included prepubescent or young females who were naked or exposing their vaginas and/or buttocks. Two of those images showed white substances on their bodies. Other images included two females engaging in oral sex with a man; two females on top of one another and exposing their vaginas and buttocks; and a young naked female engaging in sexual intercourse.
