The former top aide to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) who was arrested Wednesday had hundreds of videos depicting child pornography on a hard drive, according to new court documents.
In a criminal complaint filed on Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., a U.S. Postal Inspector described how authorities investigating a website that offered DVDs featuring nude young boys identified Ryan Loskarn, Alexander’s former chief of staff, as a customer back in 2010. In October of this year, the document states, investigators identified Loskarn’s residential IP address on the Gnutella peer-to-peer file-sharing network offering files for download with names that suggested child pornography.
Agents downloaded identical videos from the Gnutella network, and found one that depicted a man performing sexual acts with a prepubescent girl.
On Wednesday, law enforcement agents descended on Loskarn’s Washington, D.C. residence and executed a search warrant. They retrieved a portable hard drive — which they believe Loskarn had placed on a snowy ledge outside one of the home’s windows when they arrived. On the hard drive, authorities found “hundreds of videos depicting underage boys engaged in sexually explicit conduct,” among other videos containing child pornography.
Loskarn was expected to appear in court Thursday to face charges of possession and distribution of child pornography. Alexander announced on Wednesday that he had fired Loskarn, and replaced him with a new chief of staff.
Read the complaint (warning: the document contains explicit descriptions of child pornography):
