43-year-old Albert Buck Hibbert, a former music teacher in El Paso, is in federal custody for allegedly possessing child pornography.
Court documents obtained by Breitbart Texas claim that Hibbert was apprehended on April 3. U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigators reportedly busted Hibbert after linking his computer’s IP address to several folders uploaded to a Russian website. According to an indictment, the folders were full of “images of preteen girls that were indicative of images posted by persons seeking trade in child exploitative material.”
After using Hibbert’s IP address to locate his physical address, investigators showed up at the teacher’s Texas home.
“Hibbert stated that he does not have images of child exploitation material on his laptop or desktop computer,” the indictment stated.
The 43-year-old reportedly admitted to being on the Russian website once in 2012, and that he “uploaded albums of photos of random teenagers he found on Facebook. [He] stated the pictures were of girls 15 and up [and] stated there was no nudity.”
After investigators pressed him for more information, Hibbert allegedly admitted that he is attracted to girls aged 8 to 16 and would search for photos of such girls in underwear online. He also claimed that he regularly used the search terms teens, young, girl, and young teen porn.
He said pornographic files may be on his computer, but could allegedly provide no explanation as to how such files would have arrived there.
Ultimately, several images depicting the sexual exploitation of minors were allegedly discovered on Hibbert’s computer. According to an HSI report, the images depicted girls between the ages of 3 and 10 years old.
Dennis A. Ulrich, special agent in charge of HSI El Paso said of the case, “HSI special agents have ongoing efforts to identify and arrest individuals who use their positions of trust to perpetrate crimes against innocent children. We urge members of the public to contact us if they have any information related to the sexual exploitation of children, for this or any case.”
An HSI press release stated that Hibbert has worked for various Texas school districts since 1995: the El Paso Independent School District, Ysleta Independent School District and at the Ruidoso Municipal Schools. He was most recently employed at El Paso Academy East.
The investigation into Hibbert was conducted under the HSI’s Operation Predator, a program started in response to child porn becoming increasingly popular and accessible online.
Dani Dannett, a spokesperson from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told Breitbart Texas that Operation Predator an international initiative to combat child pornography.
“We’ve always investigated these types of crimes, but Operation Predator is a blanket term for all crimes involving sex and minors,” Dannett said. “Child porn used to be smuggled into the country through the mail or through airports. Now with the internet, almost all material is online. Most of these crimes are international, since materials shared from the U.S. can be viewed around the world.”
Hibbert Indictment by BreitbartTexas
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