An Iowa man who spilled gravy on his laptop found himself in hot water with police when techies at Best Buy discovered child porn images on the device — and called the cops.
Robert Watson, 54, brought the gravy-soaked, non-working computer to a Des Moines Best Buy back in August, according to a criminal complaint.
He bought a new computer and paid an additional fee for workers to transfer all his files onto the new device. In the process, “Geek Squad” employees uncovered several images they believed contained child pornography and notified authorities, the complaint said.
Once the transfer was complete, Des Moines police collected both laptops as evidence.
When questioned, Watson told detectives he “believes the pictures are of 4 and 5-year-olds that [he] felt were about to have sex,” according to the complaint.
He also allegedly told authorities he saved some of the files under names including “13-year-old” and “14-year-olds.”
Additionally, Watson admitted that he was the only person who used the password-protected laptop — and claimed he downloaded the images to the laptop so that he could “tell other people about them,” the complaint revealed.
Watson was arrested Tuesday and charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography, jail records show. He was being held at the Polk County Jail on $50,000 bond.
Paula Baldwin, Best Buy’s public relations director, told BuzzFeed News the store’s Geek Squad employees turn up apparent child porn on customers’ computers nearly 100 times per year.
“They don’t search for the material, but inadvertently discover it in the normal course of repairing a computer,” Baldwin told the outlet. “When we do find what appears to be child pornography, we have a legal obligation to notify law enforcement and we inform our customers of this prior to doing any work. Law enforcement determines a course of action based on the evidence, as they did in this situation.”