Nov. 21—A Greentown man is now facing numerous felony counts related to crimes against children after police say they located over 600 videos on his devices depicting boys as young as 7 years old engaging in sexual activity.
Austin Hewitt, 23, was arrested and charged last week on eight total felony counts related to child exploitation and possession of child pornography.
His charges stem from an Oct. 8 cyber tip that was generated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), per court documents, and officials with the Kokomo Police Department began investigating the tip after reportedly learning that a Dropbox account used to share the sexual content came back to a local account.
That account, according to police, was later determined to be Hewitt’s.
On Nov. 15, authorities initiated a search warrant on Hewitt’s Greentown residence, a probable cause affidavit filed in the case stated, and police reportedly seized several devices they believed to be related to the investigation.
They also took Hewitt into custody without incident.
During an interview with investigators, Hewitt stated he did not watch pornography but that he was part of a “pornography addiction group” in college, per court documents.
Hewitt then explained that his role in the group was to reportedly help those addicted to pornography overcome their addictions by allegedly providing them with “amateur porn” instead of content involving “real” people, court documents indicated.
However, per his interview with police, Hewitt told investigators he “might have downloaded a bad file containing child pornography,” though he explained he never viewed what he downloaded, according to the affidavit.
Authorities then reportedly confronted Hewitt with the alleged child pornography they found during a warranted search of his cell phone, including text messages referring to wanting videos of “young boys,” court documents allege.
It was at that time Hewitt reportedly asked for a lawyer.
He is currently being held on $40,000 cash bond only, and he has a bail hearing set for 1 p.m. Nov. 28 inside Howard Superior Court 1.
