Federal agents have charged a Royal Oak man with the possession and distribution of child pornography and they allege hundreds of photos of children's feet were found during a search of his home last week, according to a criminal complaint.
David Eric Yellen, who works as a freelance photographer for area gymnastics events, was named in a two-count indictment on June 2nd via MLive, which accuses the Royal Oak resident of committing the crimes between May 11 and June 1, after Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) began investigating peer-to-peer file sharing programs.
The investigation narrowed in on Yellen, the complaint alleges, after over a dozens files of "investigative interest" were downloaded onto a computer.
Matthew Hughes, an FBI special agent, wrote in an affidavit for Yellen's arrest on June 2nd that he downloaded the same 14 files and was able to see 13 of them.
Hughes wrote that the images contained "real minor children engaged in sexually explicit conduct."
The FBI traced the IP address of the computer used to download the files to Yellen. Concerning agents even further was Yellen's job and his close proximity to events that often centered around children.
“A review of publicly available social media showed that Yellen appears to be a freelance photographer and has photographed and video-taped multiple youth female gymnastics events,” Hughes wrote in his affidavit. “Yellen appears to have received credit and accolades for attending and photographing multiple events over several years. Some of the events Yellen has photographed include young, pre-pubescent males and females.”
Agents enacted a federal search warrant on Yellen's home on Thursday, June 1, where they questioned him.
According to the FBI, Yellen denied producing any child pornography, but did admit to downloading it on his home electronic devices.
Yellen said the images were over a decade old, the complaint states via MLive, but agents weren't convinced.
“Yellen stated that he used BitTorrent (a file-sharing program) regularly but denied uploading or downloading child pornography,” Hughes said in his writing. “Yellen claimed that he had downloaded child pornography 10 years ago, has retained that child pornography, and did not know that the child pornography he continued to possess was available for download by others.
“Given his extensive use of BitTorrent, I do not believe that he was unaware that he had his files in a location that allowed for sharing with others.”
Agents allege they found over 1,500 files that constituted as child sexual exploitation with 500 of those images falling under the federal definition for child pornography.
In addition, Hughes wrote, they also discovered a hard drive attached to Yellen's computer labeled "BFK" that contained at least 200 photos of children's bare feet that were apparently taken at sporting event held at the gym Yellen worked for.
"BFK" allegedly stands for "Barefoot Kids," Hughes claimed.
According to documents, Yellen told agents often took pictures of children's bare feet during events at the gymnastics gym he was employed by.
He would then masturbated to the images, Yellen allegedly admitted.
Grand Blanc Gymnastics Co., where Yellen was hired in the past to photograph events, addressed their previous employee's arrest in an email to families obtained by MLive.
“To date, there is no evidence of child sexual abuse images involving any children at this gym,” the company wrote via MLive. “Out of an abundance of caution we wanted to make you aware of this information. We understand that you may experience many different emotions from hearing this, and you may have some questions and concerns. We are working with the FBI to set up a parent meeting to address any questions or concerns.”
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