Pennington County, MN (trfnews.i234.me) – A Thief River Falls man pled guilty Monday, April 15 to possessing an image of child pornography.
Jonathan Wyatt Hulst, 22, pled guilty to a felony charge of possession of pornographic work involving minors. Hulst, who cried during the court hearing, admitted he possessed an image of a prepubescent, completely naked female whose breasts were exposed. When allowed to speak, Hulst said, “I just want to say I’m sorry and that’s all.”
At sentencing, another felony charge of possession of pornographic work involving minors is expected to be dismissed. Sentencing has been set for Monday, June 3.
During Monday’s court hearing, Hulst also admitted to three probation violations: accessing the internet without his probation agent’s approval, possessing pornographic material, and not completing sex offender treatment. At the time of the incident, Hulst was on probation for five felony counts of possession of pornographic work involving minors. He was sentenced for those offenses in March 2021.
The latest charges stemmed from an Aug. 17 meeting between the Pennington County sheriff’s investigator, a U.S. Border Patrol agent and other law enforcement officers. According to the complaint, Nasr Ullah, 19, was allegedly disseminating child pornography via Telegram and received payment through PayPal. Multiple individuals, including Hulst, allegedly sent payments to him. Law enforcement learned that Hulst had paid Ullah for two transactions, amounting to $25 each, on Nov. 28, 2022.
Law enforcement and Hulst’s probation agent then went to Hulst’s home. His brother had allegedly hidden Hulst’s two cell phones and an Xbox at his request after he knew law enforcement was at his home. His brother later showed law enforcement where the items were hidden. One of the phones featured a phone number that Hulst’s probation agent didn’t have on file for him.
The probation agent searched a laptop computer seized at his home. It contained an image of a nude prepubescent boy holding a pistol while engaging in anal sex with a nude woman. The image had been downloaded and saved on Aug. 13.
The probation agent also found that Hulst had accessed multiple links to a particular website. The links were no longer available, but previews were available. It appeared that the previews showed images of minors engaged in or performing sexual acts. The links were opened Aug. 11 and 14.
Hulst was arrested on Aug. 18 at his workplace. Before being arrested, he called his mom. Hulst told her, “I’m sorry, Mom. I did this to myself. This is on me, Mom. I should have asked for help when I started to relapse.”
Law enforcement later obtained and executed a search warrant to complete a further search of Hulst’s laptop computer. The sheriff’s investigator allegedly saw additional links to the particular website. When hovering over some of the links, he saw images of what appeared to be juvenile children engaging in sexual acts.
The sheriff’s investigator also reviewed a download of the computer’s hard drive. He saw “multiple photos of what appeared to be juvenile children engaging in sexual acts or posing in sexually suggestive poses.” Hulst was charged with possessing two particular images. One image was the image previously described.
The soon-to-be-dismissed charge stemmed from another image featuring a naked prepubescent girl in a suggestive pose. That image contained an attached zoomed-in snapshot of the girl’s vagina and anus.
