Investigation leads to arrest on sex crime allegations
11/6/2012
By ANGIE HAFLICH
ahaflich@gctelegram.com
An investigation involving members of three law enforcement agencies has led to the arrest of a Garden City man on two sex crime allegations.
James McGary, 40, 209 N. Ninth St., was arrested Thursday on allegations of two counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
According to a press release from the Garden City Police Department, at about 3:39 p.m. Thursday, the GCPD served a search warrant at McGary's residence. The search warrant was the result of an approximate month-long investigation by the GCPD, Finney County Sheriff's Office and Ford County Sheriff's Office into the alleged possession and distribution of child pornography.
Garden City police Sgt. Michael Reagle said the GCPD was notified by the Ford County Sheriff's Office that two suspected pornographic images of children were on McGary's computer.
"The Ford County Sheriffs Office did all the leg work and everything and then once they determined that the images were on a computer here in Garden City, then local law enforcement here was notified and then we, with their assistance, continued on with the investigation that led us to the search warrant," Reagle said, adding that the Ford County Sheriffs Office discovered the suspect's location by linking the computer's IP address to the residence.
During the search of McGary's residence, officers located nearly 17,000 suspected pornographic images of children on a computer inside the residence.
Reagle said that the two counts of sexual exploitation are for the two images that already were verified as child pornography.
"The two initial images were able to be verified. The remaining images will be sent to a forensic center to verify whether they are images of child pornography," he said. "So, he was able to be lodged in jail on the two initial counts of sexual exploitation because we were able to verify the two images before the search warrant. Then they discovered these other images during the search warrant. Before we charge anything related to those, they have to be verified through the forensic process."
Reagle said that he is uncertain how long the forensic investigation will take.
He also said that it has not yet been determined whether McGary has been distributing child pornography.
"The investigation is still ongoing to determine what exactly is occurring," Reagle said.
McGary is currently in custody at the Finney County Jail on a $400,000 bond.