On October 4, 2012, the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida announced that Kamil Mezalka of Palm Coast pleaded guilty for receiving child pornography over the internet. He now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in prisons and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and lifetime supervised release.
According to the FBI, the agent in Philadelphia started an undercover investigation to find people who were using file sharing programs to find child pornography. During the investigation, the agent found a flagged IP address was for an account user in Palm Coast, Florida.
The federal search warrant is where the sword comes into play. FBI agents served the federal search warrant on May 8, 2012 and entered Mezalka’s residence. When the federal agents entered the home, Mezalka quickly came out of the bedroom and quickly went back inside and locked the door. FBI agents repeatedly demanded that exit from the bedroom, but Mezalka kept the door locked and used a samurai sword on his desktop computer and compact discs.
In despite of the unexpected sword rampage, federal agents were still able to collect evidence. The hard drives were damaged, but forensic investigation showed that the one hard drive was storing more than 12,000 images and over 3,000 videos. At least 500 of these images and 100 videos were of child pornography.
During questioning by authorities, Mezalka eventually admitted that he used the file sharing program to down pornography—some of which was child pornography.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Philadelphia and Jackson investigated this case with the help of the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.
This investigation was part of Project Safe Childhood.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation
