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If you live in the New River Valley and involved in any way with child pornography, you may be getting a knock at your door from local police, as the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force has been busy at work in recent months.
The SVICACT, which is composed of investigators from various law enforcement agencies throughout the New River Valley, have been executing search warrants across the region as a result of several undercover investigations. The main purpose of the SVICACT is to find people who are sharing pornographic images of children online, officers search fileshare networks -- the peer-to-peer networks most commonly used to share music -- for a code that is embedded in the images and cannot be altered. After they find what they are looking for, it takes officers only a matter of seconds to determine what computer the files are stored on and where that computer is located. If it is at an address within the officer's jurisdiction, the officer can get a search warrant. If it's not, the address is logged into a database to make the search easier for officers from other police departments. One of those investigations has led to a Blacksburg man being charged with two counts of distributing child pornography and 25 counts of possession of child pornography. David J. Didio of Boxwood Drive in Blacksburg was recently indicted by a Montgomery County Grand Jury on the 27 child pornography-related charges. It’s alleged that the offenses took place on July 1, 2007 and Feb. 6, 2008. According to a search warrant filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, a computer, 15 CD-R’s and seven 8mm tapes were confiscated from the Didio residence. Didio is scheduled for trial on Nov. 7. Also during the past few months, search warrants have been served on various other addresses in Christiansburg, Blacksburg, Montgomery County and in Radford. During these searches, various computers, VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs, photographic equipment and other items were confiscated.
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