On Tuesday, an 18-year old former student of the Eastern Michigan University was charged with three counts of child pornography. Jacob Snyder is accused of having a large number of pictures and videos of children under the age of 12, and in various states of undress, on his computer. He has been charged for distributing, receiving and possessing child pornography.
The pornography was discovered on his laptop after law enforcement obtained a warrant and raided his father’s home. He was interviewed twice in 2012, – once at his dormitory room on the University campus, and then at his father’s home.
The EMU records show he is no longer enrolled.
Snyder admitted to federal authorities that he used peer-to-peer file sharing networks. According to records he used both Limewire and Ares among others. He received his laptop as a present in 2011.
Records show that he also admitted to using the Ares network “for maintaining and trafficking child pornography,” and that he used the Internet access subscribed in the name of his father.
Snyder told the authorities that he used to delete what he considered as “gross,” as the subjects were not old enough. When asked below which age he considered things to be gross, in his first interview he replied it was the age of eight, and in his second interview, he said it was 15.
He also admitted that he had additional hard drives containing child pornography stored in a storage locker that was owned by his family as part of a family storage business.
The teenager was released into the custody of his mother on $10,000 bond with conditions including conditions that he does not make unsupervised contact with minors, and do not view or possess any sexually explicit material.
Police found 171 pornographic videos of children, many under the age of 12, on Snyder’s computer.