Borton

A Marshalltown man was arrested on Monday night over allegations that he possessed child pornography.

According to a press release from the Marshalltown Police Department (MPD), the case originated from CyberTips submitted to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) reference imagery portraying potential child pornography located on the cloud service of a cellular phone company. Deconfliction of the CyberTips by NCMEC linked numerous images connected to the same cellular phone account, and were determined to likely have originated from Iowa.

NCMEC then referred the information to the Iowa Department of Public Safety (DPS), who then determined that the images likely originated from Marshalltown and referred the case to the MPD.

An extensive investigation was then completed that included the request and execution of numerous search warrants on multiple entities to include a private residence, a cellular smartphone device, numerous social media accounts, and numerous messaging applications. Numerous images of minors of a wide array of varying ages, to include pre-pubescent ages, portraying sex acts and/or displayed in various states of nudity were discovered as a result of the investigation.

At approximately 7:46 p.m. on Monday, officers made contact with 21-year-old Damon Borton of Marshalltown, who was taken into custody and charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor — cause to engage in act, 29 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor — promote film; seven counts of purchase/possess depiction of minor in sex acts — first offense and 17 counts of dissemination and exhibition of obscene material to minors. He is being held in the Marshall County Jail on a $367,000 cash/surety bond pending an initial court appearance on Tuesday.