CAMDEN — By BRADLY GILL
Staff writer
The trial of a Camden man charged with possession of child pornography has been delayed until November due to his defense identifying “an expert witness to testify on behalf of the defendant,” according to court documents.”
Scott Tedder is charged with 20 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing of matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child, which is a class C felony.
The documents state that “The state asserts it would be prejudiced if the defendant’s expert witness were permitted to testify, having less than three days to prepare for such testimony. The defendant asserts that he would be prejudiced if his expert witness were not allowed to testify on his behalf.”
The documents do not state the nature of the witness, nor their area of expertise and how it would relate to the case.
An affidavit filled out by Arkansas State Police Agent Terrie Smith states that the investigation began more than two years ago when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a Cyber Tip Line report from Google on April 11, 2015. The affidavit states that pornographic images were captured and uploaded to Google Drive from an AT&T U-Verse account. After obtaining information from AT&T, it was discovered that the account belonged to Tedder, along with his accompanying address, email, and cell number.
The account also included a file named “highonsamsung” with images sent from Google that appeared to be an under-aged female lying face down naked with her body posed in a seductive manner.
Another image appeared to be an under-aged female having sex on a bed.
A search warrant for the residence of Tedder was originally signed on June 24, 2015, but due to other issues getting a computer forensic team to assist with the search warrant, the warrant expired.
After speaking with the ASP Cyber Crimes Unit, they advised Smith that even though it had been several months since the images were downloaded, that they would still be able to retrieve the images from the computer hard drive, according to the affidavit.
On March 4, 2016, a search warrant for the residence of Tedder was obtained. It was served on April 7, 2016.
A team from the ASPCCU helped conduct the search during which time a computer and several hard drives were taken as evidence. A forensic search of the computer and hard drives was conducted by ASPCCU Agent Brandon Lofton, who reportedly recovered many sexually-explicit photographs of women and men, states the affidavit. Agents viewed the photographs and observed at least 21 photos depicting girls who appeared to be between eight and 16 years of age.
On April 5, 2017, Smith received a CCU forensic disk that contained the above-mentioned images from Lofton after he had completed his examination of the evidence provided to him from Tedder’s residence.
An arrest warrant was signed by Circuit Judge Hamilton Singleton on May 19, 2017. Documents show that Tedder’s bail was set at $10,000 and that his father bailed him out of jail around two hours after Tedder was taken into custody by the Ouachita County Sheriff Department with the restriction of good behavior. He was arrested in June 1, 2017, but was bailed out by his father with the restriction of good behavior. Tedder has formally entered a plea of not guilty to the charges.