CONCORD MAN ACCUSED OF DISTRIBUTING CHILD SEX ABUSE IMAGE. Eric D. Gadbois Jr., a convicted child sexual assault and sex offender, is accused of distributing and possession sex abuse images
July 14, 2020
Tony Schinella
Patch
CONCORD, NH — A New Hampshire sex offender is facing child sex abuse image possession and distribution charges after a nearly year-long investigation by Concord police detectives.
Eric D. Gadbois Jr., 29, of South Main Street in Concord was arrested on June 23 on a single count of distribution of child sexual abuse images, three counts of child sex abuse images; buy, etc. (possession), and two counts of sex offender registry; knowing failure to comply (registration of online identifiers), all felonies.
According to a court affidavit, a Concord detective was assigned to investigate a cyber tip from the NH Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force that it had received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children — which serves as a clearing house for child sexual abuse images. According to the tip, Pinterest, the social media company, reported a user name had uploaded an apparent child sexual abuse image featuring a boy in December 2018. Pinterest, the detective noted, utilizes various technologies to detect and remove child pornography. The detective eyed the picture and said it was not a selfie, and it had appeared to be taken by another person.
The company provided many details about the account that uploaded the picture including its email account and Internet protocol address which showed "multiple IP addresses" registered to Comcast in the Concord area.
The detective filed a subpoena and traced the IP address to a South Main Street business with an open wi-fi network. This required the detective to do more digging about the case to track down who was using the open wi-fi network.
About five months later, three officers were sent to the South Main Street apartment building to assist probation and parole in taking custody of Gadbois "who was not being compliant," the affidavit said.
The officers met with the probation officers who accused Gadbois of being "out of control." Gadbois said, "I am not going back alive," the report alleged.
After escorting him from the building, Gadbois was accused of continuing to say, "I am not going back alive." Officers, according to the report, had to hold him in the backseat of the cruiser to keep Gadbois from banging his head into the cage.
According to the probation officers, they were performing a check on Gadbois, who was prohibited from having Internet service in his apartment, due to his sex offender registration status. However, they found he had service at the apartment, according to the report. The probation officers confiscated a cell phone from Gadbois' car. While confiscating that phone, a second one was spotted in his pants pocket, a second affidavit said.
"(The) officer said he took the second phone off of Eric and observed child porn on the cell phone," the affidavit stated. "While I was talking with (another) officer, (the first) officer said Eric had told him that there was more child porn on the black cell phone."
The cell phones were kept in a box in the computer crimes unit in Concord headquarters until a search warrant could be requested on March 4. The next day, after approval of the search warrant, an officer wrote that he found a child sex video as well as Instagram and SnapChat accounts. Police used an extraction system to learn that 63 .jpg or .png files had been deleted from the phone while another 261 files were found in a remote media file, the affidavit stated.
Two weeks later, a search warrant was requested for Gadbois' gmail account.
The second detective then met with the first detective about the email address found on a smartphone — with the first detective realizing it was the same from the cyber tip case from 2019 he was working, connecting the two cases.
"The (second) detective advised that he had already discovered numerous child sexual abuse images on Gadbois' device, the vast majority of which (were young boys)," the first detective wrote.
The first detective, while looking at the evidence, including the Pinterest board in question, found a web bookmark created 8 minutes after the cyber tip image was upload, the affidavit stated. The detective also checked Gadbois' sex offender registry information and found the email connected to the Pinterest account and the phones as well as the address connected the IP address, the report said.
Affidavits were filed in April and June and Gadbois was arrested. He is due back in Merrimack County Superior Court on Oct. 1.
Prior Cases
Gadbois was convicted of aggravated felonious sexual assault in Rochester. According to Foster's Daily Democrat, the victim in the case was a boy under 13.
Gadbois was originally arrested in July 2011 on the charge and pleaded guilty in March 2012. He was sentenced 12 months in prison and five years probation.
About 11 months later, the case was reopened after Gadbois was charged with violation of probation. No information was available about this case. Gadbois was sentenced to counseling and treatment in November 2013, and received credit for 268 days in jail.
In 2017, Gadbois' sentence was reduced, according to court documents.
https://patch.com/new-hampshire/concord-nh/concord-man-accused-distributing-child-sex-abuse-image
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