Man arrested on child pornography charges

HYANNIS, Mass. -- A Barnstable man was in court on Tuesday answering to child pornography charges.

The suspect, 23-year-old landscaper Kevin McNichol was arrested at a relative’s house in Weymouth Monday night. Police say they have charged him with four counts, including child pornography and distribution of pornography.

Police say the man allegedly targeted young girls between the ages of 10 and 16-years-old on internet video chat rooms .They say he gave the girls explicit and erotic things to do. While performing those acts, the suspect was videotaping them, unbeknownst to the girls. Police say they have idenitified one of the girls.

"Basically we're alleging he was having online video chats with young girls aging everywhere from 10 up to 15, 16-years-old. Unbeknownst to them, he was using some software to record those video chats back and forth," said Detective Kevin Connolly, Hyannis Police Department. "He was giving them instructions on how to pose and different sexual acts to perform. He saved that on his hard drive and that's where they were stored, that's where we found them."

Officers actually seized McNichol's computer last year. He was renting a room in a Hyannis home at the time.

Police say it was a 9-month investigation. They received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that an IP address had been uploading child pornography.

Court documents show McNichol is facing four serious child pornography charges. At this point, it is unclear for how long it had been going on or whether McNichol knew his alleged victims.

"We were actually able to identify one real victim at this time. We're not going to give the location of that person, and we're actually working with NCMEC to try to identify more more victims," Det. Connolly said.

Barnstable Police told 7News they received a phone call in July from another police agency in Massachusetts that they had been told the suspect had been relentlessly contacting a young girl over the internet.

Police have seized the suspect’s computer, and they say the computer’s hard drive shows a good amount of pornography. Police say when they arrested the suspect, he wasn’t surprised. They also say the suspect has no prior arrests.

The suspect was arraigned on Tuesday morning and is being held on $5,000 cash bail.

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