Child Porn Cases Keep Tulsa Cyber Crimes Detectives Busy

The Tulsa police cyber crimes unit is overwhelmed with work.

Detectives investigate hacked Facebook pages, computer scams and cyber threats, but, by far, child pornography cases keep them the busiest.

An FBI study shows what the detectives already know, that most everyone charged with having child porn has molested at least one child in real life, often, more than one.

Police say Kevin Smith is the perfect example. He's currently serving 17 years in federal prison for having nearly 300 child porn pictures and 143 videos, many of them involving children under the age of 12.

11/5/2014 Related Story: Charges Filed Against Oklahoma Man Accused Of Kidnapping, Sexual Assaulting 12 Year Old

Smith's also charged with kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old girl in Glenpool after police say his DNA was a match in that case. He, too, is accused of trying to lure two girls from their Kool-Aid stand into his car.

Smith's trial for the rape case is set for November; he's not charged with the Kool-Aid stand incident.

Detective Malcolm Williams said, "At some point just mere looking at it is not going to continue to gratify you, sustain what it is. In my opinion, you have to be sick if that's what you're looking at, so we take all these cases seriously."

And so do juries. A jury recently sentenced Paul Hamilton to 35 years in prison for aggravated child pornography - which is more than 100 images and distributing child porn.

Police say people from every walk of life get charged with the crime.

"We've run search warrants in 900 square foot houses and 5,000 square foot houses, so you can't look at someone and say he looks like a pedophile, he doesn't. You can't tell," Williams said.

Police say they have more crimes than what three detectives can work so they put the most serious cases at the top of the list.

In addition to being part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, they also do forensic computer searches for surrounding agencies.

A common thing people charged with the crime say is that the images just got on their computer, but police say the people they arrest actively seek them out.