Tri-Cities detectives help corner another child pornographer. He got 50 years in prison

Mikhail Y. Ageyev was a lonely man who ran a small home repair business and relied on the internet for most of his human contact — with strangers, his lawyer said.

Some of those people were in chat groups for sex talk, and what started as a habit soon became an obsession, said Phillip J. Wetzel.

“The obsession grew into viewing and trading pornography,” the Spokane lawyer said. “With the ease of a mouse click, it turned to child pornography and collecting child pornography.”

Wetzel argued in a Spokane courtroom earlier this week that his 34-year-old client from Moses Lake now “faces decades of brutally hard time” in prison. He asked a federal judge to show a little mercy and set a 25-year sentence.

“A brutal premium is placed upon him for taking several photos and two short videos. There was no commercial purpose. There is no evidence that this was done for general distribution,” Wetzel wrote in a court document.

Ageyev, a citizen of Ukraine, will be deported immediately following his release. A prison term toward the lower end of the sentencing range would meet requirements of the law, while also saving nearly $2 million in “needless expense,” he argued.

But U.S. District Court Senior Judge Wm. Fremming Nielsen made it clear that Ageyev was before him for more than just viewing and trading pictures and videos of young children being raped.

Tri-Cities investigators

The case against Ageyev was investigated by detectives with the Richland-based Southeast Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and Moses Lake police.

The ICAC team of investigators had been responsible for 76 arrests as of the beginning of 2019, including 26 men in 2017 accused of soliciting young people online in the Tri-Cities. They nabbed another 13 more people in the past year, according to Sgt. Darryl Judge.

The public safety sales tax allowed Richland to establish the task force with the twin missions of combating child pornography and enticing would-be predators online.

It works with police agencies across state lines and its work is felt throughout the region.

Through its investigations, the task force has identified 67 victims and 40 at-risk children, who were accessible to the perpetrators but there was no solid evidence of them being victimized.

Judge said the task force in 2019 assisted in large-scale operations in Yakima, Post Falls and Boise, all funded by Homeland Security Investigations. Those operations led to the arrests of 32 child predators.

Investigators also gave 37 community presentations last year to help people understand the dangers that lurk online and in cellphone apps, and how to keep children safe.

The task force has two detectives from the Richland Police Department — one of whom is Judge, and one detective each from Kennewick police and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, along with a Richland detective who supports the team with technology forensics.

They anticipate another Tri-Cities detective will join the team in the next week. The detectives are deputized as special agents with Homeland Security.

In Ageyev’s case, investigators found self-produced footage on his cellphone of a toddler being sexually abused, in addition to comments he made about his future plans for the girl, including impregnating her.

Nielsen went with the recommendation from federal prosecutors and ordered a 50-year sentence, followed by a lifetime of court supervision.

“Abusing young children in any way, using any method, is conduct that society as a whole agrees is the worst kind of conduct there is, and unfortunately you were involved in it,” said Nielsen.

The little girl’s “life is now upside down and will never be the same,” he added, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.

Wetzel had tried to show that the harm to the girl might not be permanent, based on a report from the Support, Advocacy & Resource Center.

Testing shows the girl “has not been exhibiting any sexually reactive behavior,” is doing well and does not talk about the abuse, the lawyer wrote in his sentencing memorandum for Ageyev.

Alerted by CyberTipline

Ageyev first came to the attention of detectives in October 2017 after a series of tips were submitted from Twitter and the Microsoft Corporation to the CyberTipline, which is managed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

The tips were about suspected child porn uploaded by Ageyev to the internet.

The center, or NCMEC, determines which law enforcement agency is nearest geographically to the suspect and passes along that information. In this case, they started with Moses Lake police.

Investigators got search warrants for various online accounts maintained by Ageyev, and discovered he had “an online presence where he professed an interest (in sexually abusing children) and ... child pornography and where he traded child pornography images with others online,” according to the Department of Justice news release.

Ageyev admitted having child pornography files on his cellphone, including sexually explicit videos and pictures of a toddler that he had made. He also told police he had exchanged links, images and videos with others using different methods over the internet.

It was in reviewing the videos that investigators found Katrina M.M. Adams also was involved in the child porn production.

Multiple charges for child porn

A federal grand jury returned a multi-count indictment against the two in February 2018.

Ageyev pleaded guilty Oct. 21 to conspiracy to produce, production and possession of child pornography, three counts total.

As part of his plea agreement, additional charges were dropped.

Adams pleaded guilty one year ago to conspiracy to produce and distribution of child pornography. She had agreed to testify against Ageyev if his case went to trial.

Her sentencing is Feb. 24.

“Sexual predation and exploitation upon a (toddler). Producing child pornography. It is difficult to imagine a more heinous situation or more egregious situation,” William D. Hyslop, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, said in a news release. “Just as terrible, or more egregious, every time a sexually explicit image is downloaded and viewed, the child who is shown is victimized again.”

“Thank goodness Ageyev has now been convicted of three serous felony child pornography offenses and is now removed from society and the ability to hurt others,” Hyslop added.

He said it is cases like this one why they use every resource and tool available to investigate and aggressively prosecute people involved in child exploitation.

“This office will continue to do all we can to protect vulnerable child victims of these horrible crimes by seeking lengthy prison sentences, like the one imposed (against against Ageyev), for child pornographers,” said Hyslop.

This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 10:10 AM.