Phoenix man arrested on charges of downloading child pornography on Discord

PHOENIX — Police booked a Phoenix man into jail on 10 counts of sex crimes on Thursday.

Jaylin Ford, 18, is accused of downloading multiple images of children being sexually abused, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Detectives received a cyber tip about Ford’s alleged activities on June 28 from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, court documents said.

However, the NCMEC had first heard about Ford from a social media app called Discord on June 1, court documents said.

The NCMEC is an organization that receives reports of child sexual abuse materials (or CSAM for short) from internet service providers, government agencies, apps and even citizens.

Discord had sent the NCMEC Ford’s email address, username and user ID, court documents said.

Discord’s report generated 33 other cyber tips, mainly of duplicate images of children being sexually exploited, court documents said.

Overall, Ford had accessed 10 files depicting children in various states of sexual exploitation, according to court documents said.

Police: Ford said his 10 counts of sex crimes were for the good of the internet

Officials issued a search warrant on Ford’s north Phoenix residence on Thursday, court documents said.

They found a PC containing two images that depicted children being sexually abused, according to court documents.

Authorities who interviewed Ford said he provided inconsistent facts.

“He initially denied having any knowledge about CSAM being uploaded by his Discord account,” court documents said. “He started it was possible that someone created an account using his email address.”

Ford also allegedly tried to blame another Discord user “who was not very nice.”

Eventually, he admitted to downloading images of children being sexually exploited, court documents said.

“He claimed he was acting as a vigilante of sorts, trying to kelp kick people possessing CSAM off the Discord servers,” court documents said.

However, he admitted to not reporting the CSAM to the proper authorities, court documents said.

Ford is currently being held on a $50,000 bond.

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