The recent arrest of a Juneau man was tied to a nationwide effort to find and track down suspected online child sex offenders, according to the Anchorage Police Department.
Cory R. Lockhart, 28, of Juneau faces multiple charges, including possession of child pornography, according to an APD press release, and was identified as a suspect by the Alaska Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.
Alaska ICAC was participating in the United States’ Department of Justice’s Operation Broken Heart, which focused on internet crimes against children in all 50 states, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. Seven people in Alaska, including Lockhart, were arrested as part of the operation, police say, and the APD Cyber Crimes Unit was heading up the statewide investigation.
According to electronic court records, Lockhart was arraigned in Juneau Superior Court on May 9 and faces six charges of child pornography possession, a class C felony. He allegedly had the child pornography sometime between June and December 2017, according to electronic court records.
Lockhart was arrested May 8, JPD Lt. Krag Campbell said, by JPD officers in Juneau. There was a $50,000 warrant for Lockhart’s arrest, Campbell said. Lockhart is currently in custody, according to online court records.
Police agencies are not releasing his photo, APD Public Information Officer Renee Oistad explained, because police are not currently searching for Lockhart.
There were 39 operations throughout the state as part of the initiative, police say, aiming both to investigate crimes and hold community outreach projects to help local responders identify cyber crimes. There were 20 community outreach events, according to APD, including the first-ever Alaska ICAC Responder Course in Sitka.
According to the Department of Justice, the nationwide operation spanned all 50 states, involving 61 ICAC task forces and more than 4,500 federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies. The task forces investigated more than 25,200 complaints of technology-related crimes against children, the release states, and delivered more than 3,700 presentations on internet safety to nearly 400,000 youth and adults.
The operation targeted people who produce, distribute and possess child pornography; engage in online enticement of children for sexual purposes; engage in child sex trafficking; and travel across state or national borders and sexually abuse children, according to the Department of Justice. The ICAC program, which has facilitated the arrests of more than 83,000 people since 1998, is funded through the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.
