VIENNA, VA — Town of Vienna Police are investigating whether a student at James Madison High School uploaded and sent images of child pornography using his Instagram account, according to court documents.
On July 8, Vienna investigators received two CyberTips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notifying them that six files containing child pornography were uploaded to Instagram on April 13 and April 30, according to court documents. They also received information about the IP address that was used to upload the files.
Investigators submitted an administrative subpoena to Cox Enterprises, seeking more information about the IP address, according to court records. Cox provided authorities with the name of the subscriber, as well as their physical address, which was within town limits.
On July 10, the detective investigating the case obtained a subpoena to begin a real-time location search for the cellphone’s number, which pinged consistently in the general area of the Vienna address associated with the Instagram account, court records say. Doing an open-source search of the suspect’s Instagram account, the detective obtained two images of a young male in the user’s profile.
With that information and the photos, the detective visited James Madison High School on July 12 and asked the school resource officer if anyone from the Vienna address attended the school. The SRO confirmed that a 16-year-old boy lived at the address, court documents say.
In addition, a photo from the school matched photos from the suspect’s Instagram account. Also, the student’s mother was the registered subscriber of the IP address associated with the Vienna address, according to court records.
No arrests have been made in this case, which remains under investigation.
