Rogers County Man Arrested, Suspected Of Sharing Child Porn

Rogers County deputies arrest a Claremore man accused of downloading and sending child sex abuse images and videos.

News On 6 rode along with investigators for the arrest.

Investigators say a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led them to an RV in Claremore. Investigators say their suspect Randall Nichols admitted to watching and sending videos of children having sex. Authorities arrested Nichols and then searched his RV after and say they found evidence inside the RV that Nichols had been downloading and sending child pornography.

"This is becoming an increasing problem, if you look at the statistics, every year the number of URLs that are hosting child sexual abuse material is going up. I think they went up 60-something percent from 2020 to 2021,” said Sergeant Chris Buck with the Rogers County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators say the problem is so big, they could have a whole team of people investigating nothing but this crime and they'd still have more work than they could handle. They say people think they can hide behind the internet.

"It's often the next-door neighbor, people you don't expect to do it. We've found people doing this of all occupations, genders, and all walks of life,” said Buck.

Buck says they want to make it clear, watching or sending child pornography isn't a victimless crime.

"There's still a victim. Even though he is just downloading and sending, he may have never met this victim in person, there is still a child out there who is victimized and its our job to find justice for that child,” said Buck.

Every time the picture or video is shared, the victim is re-victimized.

"We love catching bad guys, but these are the worst of the worst, and anybody that is willing to victimize a child, we want to put them in jail,” said Buck.

Nichols was arrested for having child pornography and having guns in his RV while committing a felony. He’s been booked into the Rogers County Jail.