SANDY SCHROTH

sschroth@

summerlandadvocate.com

A 53-year-old O’Neill man is accused of five Class 2A felony counts of possessing child pornography, following a months-long investigation by the Nebraska State Patrol, according to an affidavit filed by a patrol investigator.

Mark P. McDermott was arrested Dec. 14, 2021, and held on bond of $30,000, 10% cash. A bond review hearing was held Jan. 31, with the Honorable Kale Burdick reducing bond to $10,000, 10%, with conditions.

McDermott remained in custody Feb. 8, when he appeared before Burdick in the Holt County courtroom in O’Neill. He waived his right to a preliminary hearing. Burdick appointed Holt County public defender Rodney Smith as counsel and bound the case over to the Holt County district court.

McDermott was arraigned in the district court Feb. 14, by the Honorable Mark Kozisec, who accepted a written not-guilty plea. Pretrial conference is set in the district courtroom May 23.

The judge granted McDermott’s motion for bond modification, ordering, “defendant will deposit 24 ounces of silver with the county sheriff as partial bond; in addition, the defendant shall post a $500 cash bond; defendant shall have no unsupervised contact with children under 18 years of age; defendant shall not view or possess any pornography materials and shall submit to searches of his residence, vehicle for evidence of the same; defendant shall not use or possess any electronic device and shall submit to searches of his person, residence or vehicle to determine compliance with this provision.”

The investigation began after a cyber tip was reported last March by Microsoft Corporation, to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and was subsequently forwarded to NSP. According to the affidavit, the report included an internet protocol address which, through a subpoena served on CenturyLink in April, was traced to McDermott.

Officers with the NSP Technical Crimes Unit served a search warrant on McDermott’s residence Dec. 14, 2021, seizing an electronic tablet device. At the same time, the investigator interviewed McDermott at his place of employment. After receiving the defendant’s permission to look through his cellular phone, the officer reported seeing 25 different open Google Chrome browser pages. The phone was seized to preserve potential evidence. The devices were sent to the NSP Technical Crimes Lab for forensic examination.

On Jan 24, the investigator processed the evidence, reporting locating more than 650 files of child pornography, including images of “prepubescent females exposing their vaginas and prepubescent females having vaginal sex with an adult male.”

The investigator noted the NCMEC cyber tip reported an image file which involved a child approximately 3 to 5 years of age.