FBI arrests EMT on child porn charges

A Spokane emergency medical technician who wants to be a police officer is out of jail after being arrested by the FBI on child pornography criminal charges.

Christopher J. Twelves was released without bond, with strict conditions, after an initial appearance Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.

While awaiting trial, the defendant can’t use computers or be near children without another adult being present, under court-imposed release conditions.

The 36-year-old EMT for American Medical Response is accused in a two-count complaint of using computer equipment to transport and possess child pornography.

Twelves admitted to possessing the child pornography and provided FBI agents with a written confession, public documents in U.S. District Court say.

“He has been placed on administrative leave,” an American Medical Response supervisor said when asked Wednesday about Twelves’ status as a “first-responder” with the ambulance company. The official asked not to be identified.

Meanwhile, Airway Heights Police Chief Lee Bennett confirmed Wednesday that Twelves was on a waiting list to attend the police academy and become a reserve officer for the West Plains community. Reserve officer positions frequently lead to full-time employment as police officers.

“He’s done,” the Airway Heights chief said after being informed of Twelves’ arrest. “He will not be considered to become a police officer, nor will he attend the academy.”

According to the court documents, an FBI agent who is a specialist in computer crimes was called on Jan. 10 by Spokane police to the Hillyard home of a couple not charged in the case. Through an “adult friend” Internet site, the couple had been in contact with a Spokane man who identified himself as a firefighter.

The Internet site bills itself as the “world’s largest sex and swinger personals site,” and includes nude photos and free live video feeds “of our exhibitionist members playing on their Web cams.”

The couple said the man they contacted through the site invited them to an “adult-oriented party” at a South Hill home in December, but they declined his invitation, the court documents say.

The Hillyard couple showed the FBI agent digital computer photos of prepubescent girls engaged in sexual activity with adult men, the documents say.

The couple also showed the agent an excerpt of an online conversation they had with the man who sent the sexually explicit photos of the young girls, the documents say.

In one of the conversations detailed in a court affidavit, the man said he had engaged in sexual activity while baby-sitting a young girl who he said was a friend’s daughter.

“I baby-sat her and she liked to pose and take pictures,” the man said in the conversation, which is part of the criminal complaint filed against Twelves.

“She was about 8 or 9 at that time, and her mom trusted me with her,” the man said in the conversation.

The agent took custody of the couple’s computer, with their consent, so it could be forensically processed for evidence of child pornography. Each digital image of a child being sexually exploited can lead to a separate charge, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Lister, who is handling the prosecution.

The case is expected to be presented next week to a federal grand jury, which could return additional counts against Twelves.

The court records say the agent then did other investigative work, eventually leading him to an apartment at 3009 E. 53rd.

Armed with a search warrant, FBI agents and Spokane police searched the apartment Monday and questioned Twelves, who was alone in the residence.

The suspect admitted to possessing pornographic images of children on his computer and said he had received them from a variety of sexually oriented Internet chat rooms, the court documents say.

When asked about the chat room transcripts where he admitted sexually abusing a young girl, the suspect told FBI agents that “was merely role playing and fantasy.”

The suspect also told the FBI that he was the subject of a child abuse investigation by Spokane Police Department detectives in 1994 or 1995, but had been cleared of allegations leveled by the young daughter of a former girlfriend.