Chat service Kik at center of yet another Evansville child pornography case

EVANSVILLE — A federal judge sentenced an Evansville man to serve eight years in federal prison Monday after he pleaded guilty to distributing sexually explicit material involving minors – a shorter sentence than federal prosecutors had requested.

Brandon Kyle Meredith Adcox, 39, is the fourth person from the Tri-State area to be convicted in federal court since August for allegedly sending or receiving child sexual abuse imagery over the social media app Kik, court records show.

Law enforcement officials have repeatedly slammed Kik for attracting those who traffic in child sexual abuse materials, but the company – which allows children as young as 13 years old to create accounts – insists Kik is safe.

According to investigators, Adcox admitted to sending and receiving dozens of illicit files through Kik's online service, and detectives claim to have found hundreds more files depicting child sexual abuse on Adcox's electronic devices.

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The investigation

The Evansville Police Department said it began investigating Adcox in September 2021, several months after a national database and Kik flagged 36 files uploaded to the chat service as potentially containing child sexual abuse imagery.

Kik, which is owned by the holding company MediaLab, forwarded the EPD usernames, email addresses and Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses associated with the files, according to a federal indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

By cross checking those addresses with the American Registry for Internet Numbers, a public database, investigators reportedly connected the files to Adcox's internet service provider.

EPD Detective Bryan Brown, a member of a joint FBI task force investigating crimes against children, said investigators executed a search warrant at Adcox's residence in January 2022.

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According to Brown, Adcox agreed to speak with detectives after the search and voluntarily provided the passcode for his iPhone; he allegedly admitted to creating email accounts associated with child sexual abuse imagery found on Kik.

"(Adcox) admitted that he had used the Kik account to distribute and receive sexually explicit material involving minors on several occasions," the affidavit states.

Investigators then said they showed Adcox some of the images in question.

"(Adcox) initialed several of the printouts indicating that he was familiar with the images based on his distribution and receipt of sexually explicit images involving minors " Brown wrote in the affidavit.

Adcox's prosecution and sentencing

Following those alleged admissions, U.S. Attorney Todd Shellenbarger charged Adcox with five counts of distributing sexually explicit material involving minors.

Adcox initially entered a plea of not guilty, court records show, but he reversed course in October and agreed to plead guilty to two counts of distributing sexually explicit material involving minors.

In exchange, prosecutors dismissed the remaining three counts.

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In a lengthy sentencing memorandum, Shellenbarger argued Adcox should receive a sentence within federal guidelines, which he calculated to be about an 11- to 14-year prison sentence.

In the memo, Shellenbarger cited Warrick County prosecutors' decision to charge Adcox in 2018 with child molestation. While the case ultimately fell apart, Shellenbarger said it evinced Adcox's potential to physically harm children.

Shellenbarger also cited Adcox's confession that he had amassed a collection of videos and images depicting the abuse of infants, toddlers and prepubescent children as evidence that he was likely to reoffend should he receive a lenient sentence.

As part of Adcox's plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence at the "midpoint" of federal sentencing guidelines. According to Schellenbarger, that would likely come out to about 12 years in prison for Adcox.

"A sentence below the guideline range would not reasonably protect the public from further crimes by the defendant and would not sufficiently deter the defendant in the future after his release from imprisonment," Schellenbarger wrote in the sentencing memo.

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He also noted that based on prosecutors' calculations, a sentence of between 11 and 14 years would place Adcox "very close to the average sentence for all similarly situated defendants across all United States District Courts in 2021."

On Monday, Judge Richard L. Young sentenced Adcox to serve eight years in prison.

Kik insists its service is safe for teens

The commander of the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, David Frattare, told the New York Times in 2016 Kik was the "problem app of the moment."

In 2017, A joint Forbes and Point Report investigation uncovered evidence of a "vast number of child exploitation cases involving the use of Kik."

The investigation deemed Kik "the defacto app" for child predators.

Kik is also named in federal cases against four Tri-State area men who were convicted in 2022 of charges related to the distribution and receipt of child sexual abuse imagery.

Chris Lynn Carder II, 36, pleaded guilty in August to distributing child sexual abuse materials via Kik. Joshua W. LaForrest, 28, pleaded guilty to three counts of distributing sexually explicit material involving minors through Kik in October.

Also in October, Jason E. Jolley, 42, and Scott J. Spear, 50, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and receive sexually explicit material involving minors.

They too admitted to using the Kik chat service. But Kik has repeatedly assured concerned parents its app is safe for kids.

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"Should I use Kik with my teen?" is a question listed on Kik's safety page, which offers information for concerned parents. The company's answer to that question is an emphatic "yes!"

"Kik is for anyone over the age of 13 who uses a smartphone," the answer continues.

A spokesperson for Kik did not respond to questions from the Courier & Press prior to publication of this article.

On its website, the company says it takes online safety "very seriously" and that it has partnered with the organization Thorn to combat child exploitation online.

And, starting in 2015, Kik began utilizing Microsoft's PhotoDNA cloud service, which can automatically detect, delete and report child sexual abuse imagery by comparing the images against an existing database.

As demonstrated in Adcox's case, Kik also routinely provides law enforcement agencies with usernames and email addresses associated with illicit files.

But in 2017, two years after Kik announced it had begun using Microsoft's system, the Forbes-Point Report investigation determined an "astonishing level of illegal content" was still "rampant across Kik."

Forbes reporters, posing as 13-and 14-year-old girls, said they received "10 private messages, all from men," within one hour of creating the fake accounts.

Kik's interactions with police are so numerous it has a dedicated portal for "law enforcement" on its website.

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"What can I do if my teen has been sending inappropriate messages?" is another question listed on Kik's safety page. The company's answer says it is the "responsibility of parents and guardians to make sure their teens comply with our acceptable use policy."

"Teens should be aware that sending or receiving sexually explicit images of a minor... is illegal," Kik's answer states in part. "You can also contact your local law enforcement."

Zachary A. Myers, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said Adcox and others use "online platforms" to share child sexual abuse materials and to "seek affirmation from other who share their sexual interest in children."

According to a U.S. Department of Justice news release detailing Adcox's arrest, the Southern District of Indiana prosecuted the second most child sexual exploitation cases of any federal district in 2019, the most recent year for which such data is available.

Houston Harwood can be contacted at walter.harwood@courierpress.com

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Chat service Kik at center of yet another Evansville child abuse case