Crime & Safety

Child Porn Investigation Nets Local Man

A Kingston man with Cartersville and Woodstock ties was arrested as a result of an investigation that began in Australia.

An investigation that originally began in Australia led U.S. Immigration and Customs officials to a Kingston man — with ties to Cartersville and Woodstock — arrested on child pornography charges.

Raymond Robin Watts, 55, a teacher at Mill Creek Middle School in Woodstock, was in court Tuesday on the charge of distributing and possessing child pornography.

According to an ICE agent’s affidavit for a search warrant in the case, Watts was apprehended following several other arrests connected to the “'Boylover' pedophile community.”

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Australian Federal Police in March 2009 arrested two senior member of Boylover on a variety of child porn charges. In June 2009, investigators received information on other members of the organizations, which led them to a Cumming man, the most senior member of Boylover after its creator. Agents say Joseph Gittings administered the website containing inappropriate photographs of children, but sent the server he built to the Netherlands “when he thought there was law enforcement interest in” it.

A “confidential source” told agents Gittings had thousands of pornographic images of children and the he or she spotted a folder on Gittings computer labeled “Jagdawg.”

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That Internet moniker led investigators to Dale Hodges, who along with Gittings, was subsequently arrested. Both have since pleaded guilty.

During the investigation of Hodges, agents identified Watts via a “cooperating source” and after a vehicle search of Boylover moderator Michael Crouse of Rome.

Crouse’s GPS unit contained a saved location labeled “Robin” with a Kingston address.

Agents learned Robin had written a book about sharks under a pseudonym, and via and Internet search found Incident at Latitude 25 North published in 2007.  It was written under the pseudonym Robin St. Taw, the last name of which investigators realized was Watts backwards. They then searched records and learned Robin Watts lived at 21 Gatepost Lane in Kingston.

In January, an undercover agent “friended” Watts on a social networking site and then began communicating with him via e-mail. After discussing the book through e-mails, the undercover agent and Watts had dinner at a Cartersville restaurant and later spoke about “kids sports and their interest in children.”

February conversations between Watts and the undercover agent “centered on Watts’ school day, Watts’ working at a boy’s basketball game for the school” and scheduling a dinner.

The two had dinner at Watts’ home, talked about “their interests in boys and the activities they participated in to be near minor boys.” Watts then pulled up on a computer several images of nude boys ranging from ages 8 to 18 and copied a folder to the undercover agent’s thumb drive.

Of the 1,027 images, agents say one third were child pornography, while a third could be considered child erotica and another third were of fully clothes boys ages 6 to 18.

After a search warrant was executed, Watts was found to have hundreds of sexually-explicit images of children on his home computer, according to the press release. He is set for arraignment and a bond hearing Tuesday at 2:30 p.m.


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