May 10, 2021 at 11:26 a.m.
Local man charged with possession of child pornography opts for trial
Local man charged with possession of child pornography opts for trial
By River News Staff-
David A. Rouse was charged with the Class D felony on Feb. 26, 2020, after local authorities received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and conducted an investigation.
Rouse made his most recent court appearance before judge Michael Bloom May 4 with his attorney Elizabeth Svehlek. Svehlek told Bloom that her client had rejected the final proposed plea agreement from district attorney Michael Schiek and requested a one-day jury trial. Bloom set a final pretrial conference for July 27 and scheduled the jury trial for Sept. 7.
According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, the NCMEC tip to the Rhinelander Police Department involved information regarding three images of child pornography that had been accessed by an account associated with the gamer chat app Discord.
Further investigation led to the location of an IP address associated with the Discord account.
After the IP address was traced to a Rhinelander residence, authorities applied for and received a search warrant.
According to the complaint, the warrant was executed on Feb. 25, 2020. Rouse was not home at the time but was located later the same day and arrested.
According to the complaint, Rouse told authorities another Discord user shared the images of child pornography with him and he then passed them on to others.
"David stated the pictures were from the same person and he had received multiple pictures," the investigating officer's report states. "I asked David if he knew the person and (he) said he did not, it was someone from the Discord chats and he could not remember the person's username."
Later in the interview, Rouse admitted to sharing images of child pornography with another Discord user.
In addition, a subsequent search of Rouse's phone turned up three videos involving young children in sexual scenarios, the complaint states.
Rouse is free on a $10,000 signature bond with the condition that he is not allowed to use any device that can access the internet for any purpose other than employment and banking.
He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted.
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