FBI Arrests Three San Diego
Men as a Result of Child Pornography Investigations
Keith Slotter, Special Agent in Charge
of the San Diego FBI Office, announces the arrest
of three San Diego men. The arrests are the result
of three separate child pornography investigations
conducted by FBI agents in coordination with the Internet
Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force. The arrests
occurred during the period Wednesday, July 9, 2008
through Friday, July 11, 2008.
The three men arrested were Scott Thomas Tubbs, age
37; Norman Hall, age 64; and Albert Ralph Freeman III,
age 24, all of San Diego.
On Wednesday, July 9, 2008, at approximately 5:30
p.m., Scott Thomas Tubbs, age 37, was arrested without
incident in the vicinity of the 300 block of South
Coast Highway, Encinitas, California. Tubbs was arrested
for violation of Penal Code Section 311.11(a) PC, Possession
Of Material Depicting Child Sexual Conduct.
According to the declaration in support of Tubb’s
arrest filed with the court in this matter, it is alleged
that Tubbs was involved in posting child pornographic
images to a website. The Internet site Yahoo reported
141 images of child pornography that were posted on
a Yahoo Groups website to the National Center For Missing
Children and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC is a
federally funded non-profit organization that maintains
a large database of child sexual exploitation images
and actively seeks out the individuals depicted in
those images to both identify the victims and determine
their ages. NCMEC reviewed the images and positively
identified 41 images as known child pornography. In
July 2007, a federal search warrant was executed on
Tubb’s residence which resulted in the seizure
of floppy disks containing 18 images and five series
of identified known child victims under the age of
eighteen.
Following his arrest, Tubbs was transported to the
San Diego County Jail where he was booked under a $50,000
bail.
On Thursday, July 10, 2008, at approximately 11:54
a.m., Norman Hall, age 64, was arrested without incident
in the vicinity of the 2800 block of Havasupai Avenue,
San Diego, California. Hall was arrested for violation
of Penal Code Section 311.11(a) PC, Possession Of Material
Depicting Child Sexual Conduct.
According to the declaration in support of Hall’s
arrest filed in this matter, in November 2006, Hall
took his computer into a local computer repair facility.
During the normal course of business, a computer technician
observed images believed to be child pornography on
Hall’s computer. Later that month, a federal
search warrant was obtained and executed for Hall’s
computer. A forensic examination revealed approximately
800 images of child pornography on Hall’s computer.
The 800 images of alleged child pornography were submitted
to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
(NCMEC) Child Victim Identification Program (CVIP)
to identify images depicting known child victims. Of
the 800 images submitted to NCMEC, 14 images and five
series were identified as known child victims under
the age of eighteen.
Following his arrest, Hall was transported to the
San Diego County Jail where he was booked under a $50,000
bail.
On Friday, July 11, 2008, at approximately 11:54 a.m.,
Albert Ralph Freeman III, age 24, was arrested without
incident.
According to the affidavit filed in this matter, Freeman
allegedly used a specialized version of a peer-to-peer
file sharing program to share and possess child pornographic
images. FBI agents were able to downloaded 20 files
some of which contained child pornography, including
images depicting children engaging in sexual acts.
On August 22, 2007, FBI agents and Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS) agents executed a federal
search warrant at Freeman’s residence. A forensic
review was conducted of Freeman’s laptop computer.
The forensic review revealed child pornography had
been on his computer in the recent past.
Freeman was subsequently booked into the Metropolitan
Correctional Center (MCC). Freeman is expected to have
his initial appearance before a U.S. Magistrate Judge,
on Monday, July 14, 2008.
Scott Tubbs and Norman Hall are being prosecuted by
the San Diego District Attorney’s Office. Albert
Ralph Freeman III is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s
Office.
The above investigations were conducted as part of
the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative
(IINI), a component of the FBI’s Cyber Crimes
Program. IINI is an intelligence driven, proactive
multi-agency investigative operation to combat the
proliferation of child pornography/child sexual exploitation
facilitated by an online computer. The IINI provides
centralized coordination and analysis of case information
that by its very nature is national and international
in scope, requiring unprecedented coordination with
state, local, and international governments and among
FBI field offices across the country.
The FBI’s IINI focuses on the following:
