A pre-preliminary hearing has been continued for a Stroud man arrested by OSBI agents in July on two felony counts dealing with child pornography.
John Mack Byrd., Jr., 43, was formally charged July 29 in Lincoln County District Court with possession of child pornography and using access to computers to violate Oklahoma State statutes.
Byrd was arrested July 26 by agents with the OSBI. The Stroud Police Department and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office reportedly assisted with the investigation.
Byrd appeared July 27 before Associate District Judge Sheila Kirk and she set his bond at $100,000. He was ordered to reappear on Aug. 1 and made his initial appearance at that time.
On Oct. 15, he appeared before Special Judge Emily Mueller. She scheduled his pre-preliminary hearing for 1:30 p.m. Nov. 17.
On that date, the judge continued the cause until Jan. 19, 2023.
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 affidavit states that Savory reviewed a NCMEC cyber tipline report and the file that Dropbox provided.
The file reportedly contained pornographic images, the agent stated in the affidavit.