A Broken Bow, Okla., man entered a guilty plea in connection with child pornography Thursday before a federal judge in Texarkana.
Patrick Kellam, 42, appeared with Texarkana lawyer John Pickett for a plea hearing Thursday morning before U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey in Texarkana's downtown federal building. Kellam took images of child pornography he possessed while living in Ashdown, Ark., with him when he moved across state lines to Broken Bow in June 2013, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Ferguson said.
Officials with the Arkansas State Police were notified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Kellam had attempted to upload images of child pornography to a cloud-based storage service using his Verizon cellphone account and Yahoo email account in the first few months of 2013 from an Internet address in Arkansas. NCMEC received 25 other notifications of similar uploading attempts by Kellam from Verizon, Google and Synchronoss, Ferguson said.
Homeland Security investigators determined Kellam had moved from Arkansas to Oklahoma and interviewed him at his home in Broken Bow in June 2015, according to a plea agreement used to create the following account. Kellam admitted he had been accessing images of child pornography for some time and that "he knew it was wrong."
"Kellam said the images were of minors of all ages, including some infants, and he had last downloaded images a couple of days ago," the plea agreement states.
Kellam agreed to allow investigators access to his Samsung cellphone, Samsung tablet and Dell laptop. The devices all contained images of child pornography. Of the 67 images depicting children in sexually exploitative situations, at least one showed a prepubescent girl between the ages of 6 and 9 years being sexually assaulted.
Kellam's plea agreement includes his forfeiture of all the electronic devices on which he kept the offending images of children. Kellam must register as a sex offender.
Transporting child pornography is punishable by a minimum of five years in federal prison and a maximum of 20. The offense also includes the possibility of a fine up to $250,000. Kellam is free on a $5,000 unsecured bond and has been wearing an electronic monitor since he was released following a detention hearing March 29. Hickey said that because Kellam has complied with the conditions of his pretrial release, she will allow him to remain free under the supervision of probation officials while wearing the electronic monitor until sentencing.
Once the court has received a presentence investigation report including a recommendation for punishment under federal guidelines, a date for Kellam's formal sentencing will be scheduled. If any of the children in the images Kellam transported have been identified, Kellam could be ordered to pay restitution meant to help the victims deal with their physical and emotional suffering. The issue of restitution will be addressed at Kellam's sentencing hearing in approximately three months.