Pulaski County man arrested on child pornography charges and alleged plans to sexually assault

A Pulaski County man was arrested Thursday for alleged possession of child pornography and plans to sexually abuse a minor.

The South Central Cyber ​​Crimes Task Force collaborated with the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office after a series of cyber tips showed child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) were being exchanged from a device in Saint Robert, Missouri .

• August 26, 2024:The first cyber tip came to the task force after messaging app Kik suspected one of its users of sending CSAM and notified authorities about the account where the content had been flagged.
• September 6, 2024:Two additional cyber strikes occurred after the same account was found to be sharing more illegal content.
• October 7, 2024: A cyber notice marked the fourth illegal content shared by the same user.
• October 22, 2024: The fifth cyber tip flagged the user’s statements declaring that he “had, wanted to, or was planning to sexually abuse a child,” according to a probable cause statement.

At least 35 CSAM files were reported in these cyber tips.

On October 24, a search warrant was filed for the suspect, Nicholas Andrew DeVita, 44, of Saint Robert.

Upon executing the search, agents stated that DeVita allegedly admitted to owning the social media accounts where CSAM was exchanged with other users.

However, court documents noted that he denied sexually abusing a child or planning to do so, but was instead “role-playing with other users.”

The man was charged with possession of child pornography: second offense/subsequent offense or possession of more than 20 photographs/one film/video tape.

DeVita was booked into the Pulaski County Jail on $500,000 bail.