PKG | Former U.S. government employee pleads guilty to child porn charges
WINCHESTER, Va. - According to investigators with the Frederick County Sheriff's Office (FCSO), after decades of producing child pornography, 62-year-old Michael Beeman was finally outed, not by a victim, but by his dog walker.
"He became concerned upon looking at [Beeman’s iPad], per Beeman's request,” FCSO Captain Donald Lang explained to WHAG on Wednesday morning. “There were pictures [on the iPad] that were concerning to him, that in his opinion would be under the age of 18."
The dog walker discovered the images in January 2014, and immediately called 911. Because of the images, investigators were about to file a search warrant shortly thereafter.
However, when they raided Beeman's home off Thompson Court in Winchester, they discovered much more than a few pornographic images of children on an iPad.
"There were numerous electronic devices that were in there,” Lang said. “They include thumb drives, discs...any type of software that you could put into a computer to save pictures [or] video…VHS tapes."
Investigators seized over 250 electronic devices, many of which, according to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office, had child porn on them.
Even more alarming than the amount seized from Beeman's home, according to investigators, was the fact that most of the child pornography was produced by Beeman himself.
"We were able to date back...child pornography and child exploitation…all the way back to the 1980s,” Lang said of FCSO’s part of the investigation, before it was handed off to federal officers.
According to the D.A., along with Beeman’s public LinkedIn profile, Beeman was a public affairs officer at the Patrick Air Force Base in Florida at the time his child pornography collection began.
According to investigators, Beeman - who worked for the U.S. Government for over 40 years - was producing child pornography even after he relocated to Virginia in 2010.
Until recently, Beeman was employed as a regional public relations officer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Winchester.
“A major problem with any case like this, and this is just a perfect example, you're trying to identify people from way back to the mid-80s, and it becomes a little difficult," Lang said.
According to a press released from the D.A., “many of the victims depicted on the defendant’s devices were found by National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to be previously identified minors.”
Beeman faces up to 20 years in prison for his four counts of possession of child pornography, and up to 10 years in prison for one count of transportation of child porn.
Beeman’s formal sentencing is set for a later date.