MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, Colo. — A man will spend seven and a half years in federal prison after investigators found an organized collection of more than 10,500 child porn images and videos in his home, the District Attorney for the 17th Judicial District said Monday.
Jason Van Hoesen, 46, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in July.
Colorado’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force began investigating Van Hoesen in December 2018.
A search engine detected that Van Hoesen had uploaded an image that was suspected to be child pornography and reported that image to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the release says.
Using the IP address of the computer that had uploaded an image of a naked boy, the DA said ICAC was able to track it to the Mountain Village home where Van Hoesen lived with a roommate. Mountain Village is a small town near Telluride, Colorado.
The agency obtained a search warrant and found several digital storage devices belonging to Van Hoesen, according to the DA.
Those devices contained more than 10,500 child porn files that the DA said were organized into folders, including some that contained images of infants and toddlers.
Investigators did not find any child porn images on devices belonging to Van Hoesen's roommate, the DA said.
Following his prison sentence, Van Hoesen will spend 10 years on supervised release, the DA said.
As part of his plea agreement, Van Hoesen will also have to pay $60,000 in restitution to 20 minor victims who were identified in the images and have requested payment.
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