A Stroud man facing two felony counts dealing with child pornography has waived his jury trial.
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.
During a motions hearing recently before District Judge John Canavan, Byrd and the state waives a jury trial and Byrd also waived a speedy trial. The court received the waivers and set the cause for a status/ disposition hearing at 9 a.m. on March 5.
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 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.