The Spokane County Sheriff's Office arrested a 33-year-old woman and charged her with multiple counts of possession of child porn.
The Sheriff's Office says the investigation began months ago after a detective received a tip from Internet Crimes Against Children and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The tip contained information about an image of child pornography being uploaded using a local internet provider. The detective got a search warrant to investigate the image and learned the internet service used was provided to a subscriber in north Spokane County.
Last week, a Spokane County Sheriff's Office detective went to the home and talked with a man and his girlfriend, 33-year-old Shannon Travis. Travis' boyfriend said he was not responsible for uploading the child pornography and said Travis lives in Oregon, but was visiting him at the time the image was uploaded.
Travis told detectives she viewed image of child pornography on her tablet, and said someone sent her an image via a social media site. Travis said when she saw the image was a nude female teen, she deleted it and blocked the sender. Travis handed over her tablet and consented to a search.
After obtaining a search warrant, the tablet was found to have 44 depictions of minors engaging in various, sexually explicit conduct. 15 of those images met the criminal elements to charge Travis with Possession of Depictions of a Minor Engaging in Sexually Explicit Conduct in the 1st Degree, while the remaining 29 images met the criteria for the same charges in the 2nd Degree.
During a subsequent interview, Travis admitting to knowing about the images that were found on her tablet.
At the conclusion of the interview, Travis was taken into custody and booked into the Spokane County Jail for fifteen counts of Possession of Depictions of Minors Engaging in Sexually Explicit Conduct 1st Degree and one count in the 2nd Degree.
(story: KHQ.com; image: Spokane County Sheriff's Office)