Roads

Jeffrey G. Roads pleaded not guilty to federal charges of transportation of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

A jury trial will begin Dec. 2 in the federal courthouse in Des Moines with District Judge Stephanie Rose presiding.

Roads, formerly employed by the city of Marshalltown public works department, was arrested by authorities and charged January 14. He has been held in Polk County Jail since.

Roads is represented by attorney Jennifer Frese of Frese & Kaplan LLP.

“We are ready to go,” Frese said.

FBI special agent Chris Thomas alleged several offenses committed by Roads and said the case started when a minor in Oklahoma accused Roads of molestation and showing her a sexually explicit video. The incident was alleged to have happened when the minor was in Iowa.

Thomas obtained a federal search warrant and several electronic devices were confiscated from Roads, including his iPhone. Thomas said the iPhone was named “Jeff’s Work Phone” and it contained around 198,000 image files. He said he went through about 100 of the files which he determined to contain child pornography.

Some of the children in the images were estimated to be as young as 2 or 3 years old up to young teenagers.

Thomas said he had only time to sort through a small number of all the files on Roads’ iPhone and was “not even close” to finishing looking at all the data on the device and other devices seized in the federal warrant.

A transportation of child pornography conviction carries a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence.

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Contact Mike Donahey at

641-753-6611 or

mdonahey@timesrepublican.com