ST. GEORGE — A man was arrested on 100 counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor following an 18-month investigation that began with the Utah Attorney General’s Office in December of 2022
And as a result of the investigation, agents recovered the largest amount of child sexual abuse material that has ever been forensically analyzed in Utah — and possibly the country.
David Michael Thibodeau, 63, was arrested May 15 by Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force agents and booked into Purgatory Correctional Facility facing 100 first-degree felony counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, according to the affidavit filed in support of the arrest warrant that was unsealed on Tuesday.
The arrest stems from an extensive investigation that began in December 2022 when a computer with a geolocation in Utah was found to be actively sharing files containing child sexual abuse images with other online users.
Agents also determined that the IP address associated with a particular subscriber was the sole user involved in downloading more than 490 sexually explicit images of children. Further investigation into the IP address indicated the computer was located at a residence on East 900 South in St. George. The subscriber was then identified as Thibodeau.
In January 2023, investigators served a search warrant on the suspect’s residence and seized his cell phone. During the search, agents located a room containing numerous computers and monitors, along with a number of large external hard drives that were attached to the computer towers.
Agents also noticed that on at least one of the computers, files were actively being downloaded and shared while agents were conducting a cursory search of several of the hard drives at the scene. They also noted there were “folders upon folders of pornography,” as stated in the report, and each was labeled with a description of the folder’s contents.
Several of the computers had open folders containing pornography that was displayed on the screens, as well as other sexually explicit documents.
After an initial search revealed several files of suspected child sexual abuse material on a number of the computers, in addition to the extent of the electronic devices found on scene, the devices that reportedly contained child sexual abuse material were inventoried, collected and sent to a computer forensics lab for analysis. Due to the enormous amount of data, the process took more than a year “and is still not complete,” and the lab advised investigators there are roughly 320 terabytes that have to be processed between the devices.
Agents included information on the volume of data that was contained on the devices by noting that the average computer contains roughly 1-2 terabytes of storage, and the average size of an image is roughly 1 megabyte. One gigabyte is roughly 1,024 megabytes and it takes 1000 gigabytes to make up one terabyte – meaning – if all of the data on the drives contained these images, then there could be more than 320 million images in the files being processed by the lab.
The forensics lab advised investigators there could be “thousands if not millions of child sexual abuse material contained between the devices” and thousands of the images that were analyzed were matched up with files identified by the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children.
The forensic agency also advised agents that this was the largest case involving child abuse materials they have ever seen, “and is likely one of the largest in the country,” the report states.
When finished, agents were advised the final forensics report would likely be larger than 600 gigabytes in size.
During an interview, Thibodeau told agents he was employed as a senior computer network engineer before he retired in 2012, and when he was advised that agents were from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and were able to download files containing child sexual abuse material from his computer, the defendant said that while he views pornography, he denied having pornographic images of children. He said whenever he would come across those types of files he would delete them.
He also said he did not have any specific type of pornography that he would save but would download “a lot of different types,” as noted in the report.
The defendant also said he has “downloaded millions of files and he doesn’t know what is contained in them,” and went on to explain he has had torrents in his list that have been downloading for five years that have yet to be completed, and said he had only one peer-to-peer network device that is always running.
The defendant told agents “he knows about technology and about isolation” and talked about security and not wanting files he downloads to infect his other computers, so once he determined that downloaded peer-to-peer files were safe, he would transfer the file to another computer – statements that led investigators to surmise that Thibodeau had extensive knowledge of computers and how they operate.
The defendant went on to say the processing of pornography files was limited to two of the computers running in his house — one that was used for downloading and the other for transferring the files once they were deemed safe.
He also reiterated that he did not always know what files he was downloading and would sometimes be looking for a couple of files in a torrent that could contain hundreds of additional files. This led agents to believe the defendant understood how the file-sharing protocol worked and was aware that he was sharing files contained on his computer.
With the forensic analysis still underway on May 9, investigators met with the Washington County Attorney’s Office to review the case and the “magnitude of the files possessed and likely shared” by the defendant. Following the meeting, an affidavit was drafted for Thibodeau’s arrest and the case was filed later that same day. Thibodeau was arrested and booked into jail six days later.
On Tuesday, the case was unsealed and the defendant made an initial appearance in 5th District Court in St. George. He remains in custody in Washington County without bail.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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