Former school employee pleads guilty to child porn charge

WICHITA, KAN. – A Kansas man pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography.

According to court documents, Eric Caleb Carlson, 43, of Wichita admits to downloading and receiving videos and images depicting prepubescent children subjected to sex acts.

In June 2023, Synchronoss Technologies submitted two reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) regarding files uploaded to its cloud-based backup service containing child sexual abuse/exploitation material. Law enforcement investigators linked the account to Eric Carlson based on evidence including a photograph of Carlson’s driver’s license, a selfie of Carlson, and photographs taken at Wichita Unified School District 259, where Carlson formerly worked in the IT division. 

Carlson was arrested at the USD 259 office (his now former place of employment), and his phone was seized. A search of his phone revealed numerous images and videos of child sex abuse material located in a password protected private folder.

Carlson also had the Onion Router (“Tor”) on his device, which is a free and open source software for enabling anonymous communications and access to the dark web. Investigators reviewed Carlson’s Tor browser history and found cached darknet webpages he had visited that offered access to child exploitation materials. In July 2023, Carlson downloaded and received a zip file from the dark web containing child sex abuse material. 

Carlson is scheduled to be sentenced on January 22, 2024. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force are investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gordon is prosecuting the case.

Project Safe Childhood
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc. 

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