Henderson man charged with possession of child porn
A 79-year-old Henderson man is charged with possessing child pornography after police found more than 643 images and videos of child pornography on his computers, according to an arrest report.
Russell Erbstoesser, 79, was arrested Jan. 8 and booked into the Henderson Detention Center. He transferred to the Clark County Detention Center on Wednesday, according to the report and jail records.
According to court records, he was charged with one count of possessing visual pornography of a person under 16, and three counts of preparing, advertising or distributing material depicting pornography involving a minor.
Erbstoesser’s attorney, Brian J. Smith, declined comment when reached Thursday. He confirmed a not guilty plea was entered on Erbstoesser’s behalf during a recent court appearance.
On March 26, 2019, the Internet Crimes Against Children task force received 17 reports documenting the repeated transmission via the internet of four images depicting child pornography, according to the Henderson police report.
The reports “were received from Microsoft via the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,” the report said.
An investigation found that 13 internet searches for the images were conducted Nov. 24, 2018. Four more were conducted in December 2018. The IP address used in the searches “had been leased to Russell Erbstoesser” at a residence in Henderson. The images in question were described in the arrest report as graphic sexual images of children.
On April 4, 2019, Henderson police and members of the task force served a search warrant on Erbstoesser’s residence. An FBI agent and a Henderson police investigator made contact with Erbstoesser and he agreed to be interviewed, the report said.
“When confronted with details of the investigation, Erbstoesser became visibly frustrated,” the report said. “He admitted to searching for and viewing CP on the internet and that he had been doing so for a number of months. He admitted to being aroused by CP but denied saving any of the material. During the interview it appeared that Russell was evasive and less than truthful when answering questions.”
In May 2019, Henderson police were contacted by a trooper with the Massachusetts State Police regarding the Erbstoesser case. Police said Massachusetts authorities were also conducting a similar investigation regarding a computer search in that state.
“The suspect was initially identified as a local district attorney,” the report said. “Upon serving a search warrant, it was determined that the DA in question was the son-in-law of Russell Erbstoesser. It was confirmed that Russell had been visiting the residence at the time of the incident documented by Microsoft and it appears that he (Russell Erbstoesser) had been the person conducting the BING image search.”
After learning this, Massachusetts authorities closed their investigation.
A preliminary hearing is set for Jan. 28 in Henderson Justice Court. Erbstoesser remained in the detention center on Thursday with $51,000 bail, court records show.
Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0390. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Katelyn Newberg contributed to this report.