John Scott Larsen, 57, of Waldorf
On March 13, 2020, the Prince George’s County Police Department received a Cyber Tip from The Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding a potential image of child pornography. The tip was regarding an incident that occurred on January 24, 2020, where an image was shared over the internet.
Police viewed the image and described it as an image of an adult male having sex with a pre-pubescent female.
PG County Police sent a subpoena request to the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office on August 25, 2020 for the subscriber information for the device address provided by The Center for Missing and Exploited Children. On September 4, 2020, a response was received from Verizon that Indicated that on January 24, 2020 a device used to access the image was registered to John Larsen at a residence in Waldorf. The device had a username and e-mail address of [email protected].
On September 8, 2020, this case was transferred to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office for further Investigation due to the computer address being registered in Charles County.
At the Sheriff’s Office Larsen was placed into an interview room and read him his Miranda rights, and he acknowledged that he understood his rights and agreed to continue speaking with investigators. Larsen admitted to downloading child pornography from the internet while at his residence in Waldorf. He said he would get the Images from the Internet but did not name a specific location or website. He said he would save them into a photos folder on his laptop. Larsen said that the children in the images just kept getting younger and younger. As investigators were Interviewing Larsen, a search and seizure warrant was being prepared for his residence. Detectives executed the warrant at his residence and retrieved the black lap top that Larsen described, cell phones belonging to Larsen, along with several other devices and storage devices such as thumb drives.
All items seized were analyzed by a Digital Forensics Examiner at the Charles County Sheriff’s Office. On the black Toshiba brand laptop seized from Larsen’s bedroom there were 8,110 images of child pornography with 1,888 of those being considered child exploitative. The majority of Images were of prepubescent children and 632 photos were the ages of Infants and toddlers. Some images included children engaging in bestiality and children being bound. The Initial photograph that prompted the investigation from The Center for Missing and Exploited Children was also located on the device.
Larsen was arrested and charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography on Tuesday, February 9, 2021, and taken to the Charles County Adult Detention Center. He was released on his own recognizance on Wednesday, February 10, 2021. Larsen has a court date scheduled in Charles County District Court on May 21, 2021.
John Scott Larsen, 57, of Waldorf
