SAN ANTONIO — A woman suspecting a man she was involved with of infidelity logged into his social media account and instead found he was sharing child pornography material, arrest records state.
Investigators with the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) say she initially thought Kevin Lee Garcia-Perez, 18, was cheating on her, according to an affidavit. They shared a Twitter login, and while the woman was doing detective work for infidelity on Oct. 7, she found out Garcia-Perez had criminal interests instead.
Two days later, she met with police to report her discovery while Garcia-Perez stayed in the vehicle, not knowing she was with authorities. Police later executed a search warrant after viewing children between 9 and 12 years old "engaged in sexual conduct" on the account.
Investigators say they called the woman to get the 18-year-old suspect's Twitter handle. An arrest document states that when the woman logged back onto the account, she found a girl who looked to be about 10 years old exposed and posing for a camera.
By mid-October, Twitter suspended the account and a tip was forwarded to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Joel Hoelscher who specializes in family law, has encountered numerous cases during his career dealing with child pornography.
"Sometimes it comes up incidentally when we’re attempting to deal with child welfare cases and we find these types of images," Hoelscher said.
Hoelscher noted it's possible Garcia-Perez's defense team may try to invalidate the evidence against him by attacking the now-former girlfriend's actions of obtaining the defendant's login information. But the affidavit states the defendant and witness shared "login and passwords for various accounts with each other."
As for the prosecution, he sees a more direct route toward the goal of swaying a jury to convict.
“Juries aren’t very sympathetic to people distributing child pornography so the prosecutors are probably looking for a high sentence," Hoelscher said.
Meanwhile, police continued to gather the evidence they needed. Documents show the woman recorded the suspect confessing to selling child porn as well.
The Von Ormy man is being held on a $100,000 bond for possession or promotion of child pornography.
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