A Stroud man facing two felony counts dealing with child pornography has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison.
John Mack Byrd., Jr., 43, was formally charged July 29, 2022 in Lincoln County District Court with possession of child pornography and using access to computers to violate Oklahoma State statutes.
Byrd, appearing before District Judge John Canavan, and upon the state’s recommendation as the result of a plea bargain, withdrew his previous plea and pleaded guilty.
Judge Canavan advised the defendant the he faced 85 percent crimes. The judge received the plea and found Byrd guilty on both counts.
Byrd and the state waived a pre-sentence investigation.
On Count 1, possession of child pornography, the judge sentenced Byrd to 20 years in the Department of Corrections with all the time suspended except the first five years. He also assessed Byrd a $100 fine, a $100 VCA and court costs.
On Count 2, the judge sentenced Byrd to five years in DOC, a $100 fine, $100 VCA and court costs and the judge ordered that the sentences are to run concurrent with one another. Byrd is to pay 991 fees and he was advised of the mandatory sex offender registry.
Judge Canavan placed him on supervised probation with DOC, told him to report to the probation office with 10 days of his release and he is to report to the Court Clerk’s office within 180 days of his release.
Assistant District Attorney Kelly Trimble handle the case for the state and Byrd was represented by attorney Larry Lenora.
Byrd was arrested July 26, 2022 by agents with the OSBI. The Stroud Police Department and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office reportedly assisted with the investigation.
The first felony accuses Byrd of possessing child pornography, a felony, on about March 4, 2022 in Lincoln County by possessing a cellular phone with images consisting of child pornography.
In Count 2 against Byrd, he is charged with communicating with and retrieving data from computer systems or computer networks, known as Mega and Dropbox for the purpose of such access to retrieve, obtain and store images consisting of child pornography.
In a probable cause affidavit, it states on July 1, 2021 OSBI Special Agent Rachell Savory was assigned an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) investigation that was initiated by Dropbox and reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
A cyber tip indicated that Dropbox reported user with screen/user name John Byrd registered an account email address that traced to Byrd and uploaded one familiar child pornography file to his account on around June 10, 2021.
The file reportedly contained pornographic images, the agent stated in the affidavit.
According to the affidavit, the Dropbox account was at an IP address that was allocated to Windstream Services, LLC. It was determined the account subscriber was John M. Byrd with a Stroud address.