North Carolina man set for trial in Boulder child pornography case

Mitchell Byars, Daily Camera, Boulder, Colo.
·1 min read

Jul. 29—A North Carolina man accused of having child pornography when he was taken into custody in Boulder on out-of-state warrants is set for trial early next year.

Kellen David Steckler, 21, pleaded not guilty in Boulder District Court Friday to five counts of sexual exploitation of a child.

He is now set for a three-day trial starting Jan. 18 and a motions hearing on Nov. 22.

Boulder police, while working with the U.S. Marshals Service, first arrested Steckler in August 2020 after authorities discovered he had ties to Boulder and may be in the area, according to police. Steckler had warrants out of North Carolina for suspicion of indecent liberties with a child, soliciting a child by computer and disseminating obscenity to a minor under the age of 13 — all felonies.

After Steckler was taken into custody, Boulder detectives executed several search warrants for his electronic devices.

The release said detectives from the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder County District Attorney's Office assigned to the Boulder County Computer Forensics Lab executed a search warrant on several phones and a computer that Steckler had in his possession.

During analysis of the devices, detectives located pictures and video files in the gallery of the device that were identified as child pornography.