Hockessin Man Arrested After Police Follow Trail of Child Porn Online
A Hockessin man was arrested Tuesday by members of the state Child Predator Task Force and accused of distributing child pornography after an investigation led officers to his computer.
Daniel Ryan Cooke, 26, of Michelangelo Court, was charged with 25 counts of dealing in child pornography, said Jason Miller, spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office.
Cooke, who was employed during the 2012-2013 school year as an assistant junior varsity soccer coach for the Hornets at the Tatnall School, was being held in the Vaughn Correctional Institution after he failed to post $1.5 million bail.
An undercover investigation into file-sharing programs containing child pornography led officers to search Cooke’s home early Tuesday.
Detectives seized several computers and assorted other media and electronic devices and took Cooke into custody for questioning.
A forensic review of the seized items revealed several files of child pornography that included one video of an elementary-age girl engaged in sex acts with an adult male, Miller said.
Cooke told investigators that he built his computer that was password protected and acknowledged downloading a file-sharing program to acquire child pornography, police said in court records.
“He admitted that he has been doing this since approximately 2002,” when he would have been 15 years old, according to court records.
Cooke told detectives that he downloaded about 100 images of child pornography on Monday.
According to court records, the videos contained images of “young females from 7-years-old up to 17-years-old having vaginal, anal and oral sex with adults.”
Mike Morgan, a spokesman for the Tatnall School, said Cooke was hired in the fall to coach the boys junior varsity soccer team and had no contact with him since the season ended on Nov. 1.
“That’s not a full-time position, just in the afternoon for a couple hours and game time,” Morgan said.
Prior to hiring Cooke for the part-time position, the school conducted a background check and “it came out clean,” he said.
Source: Delaware Online