An officer serving at the Army Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon, Georgia, is in federal custody after investigators reportedly found dozens of files containing child pornography on his home computer.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Hurwitz is awaiting federal charges, according to local media reports confirmed by Bryan Cox, a spokesman for Homeland Security Investigations, part of the federal Department of Homeland Security. HSI and local law enforcement searched Hurwitz's home Sept. 8, according to local media reports -- one day after receiving a warrant and nearly two months after an investigation began into a child-porn sharing ring allegedly swapping files via the BitTorrent network.
Hurwitz reportedly admitted to downloading and viewing the material. He was taken into custody Friday and is set to appear in court Sept. 30.
Army Criminal Investigation Command is involved in the investigation, CID spokesman Chris Grey said, but referred all questions to HSI. Cox said he was not personally aware of any material being seized from Hurwitz's work computers or elsewhere on Fort Gordon.
Investigators traced Hurwitz via his Internet Protocol, or IP, address, according to media reports citing court documents; someone using the IP address had downloaded more than 100 files over two days in July that were being monitored by the Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce.
Hurwitz reportedly admitted to viewing the material, told investigators which computer he'd used to do so, and said he'd last accessed the material about a week before the search warrant was executed.
Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.
