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By MACKENZEE SIMMS | Staff Writer

HELENA –A Helena man was arrested for 10 counts of child pornography with intent to disseminate on Saturday, July 27. The man, William Ernest Williams, 42, is currently in custody at the Shelby County Jail with a bond of $300,000.

According to Shelby County Chief Deputy Clay Hammac, their department was first made aware of Williams after receiving data from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program.

“We have a partnership in which (the ICAC is) able to, for lack of a better description, monitor certain traffic across the world wide web,” Hammac said. “(They alert) any images that are identified as criminal, innocent images or child pornography to the local law enforcement agencies. That then equips us with the tools to investigate further.”

The tips from ICAC originally pointed to the Birmingham Public Library. After investigating, the police were able to identify a particular user account with Williams’s information, including his address.

“Everyone’s innocent until proven guilty, and so we start following the breadcrumbs and just doing good old fashioned police work,” Hammac said.

According to the Shelby County Sheriff ’s office, the police received another tip that someone was communicating with an underaged girl at William’s address. Using this information, the police obtained a search warrant for his house.

The search warrant allowed investigators to collect information which led to an arrest warrant to be issued for Williams. Investigators believed he had fled the state, so they requested nationwide extradition.

Officers in the Seattle Police Department arrested Williams on Saturday, July 27. Williams was extradited back to Alabama and is currently being held in the Shelby County Jail.

Williams has been charged with 10 counts of child pornography with intent to disseminate. His bond is set at $300,000 which is the sum of $30,000 for each of his 10 charges.

Hammac explained that child pornography possession charges are filed with intent to disseminate based on the volume of images and any further sharing.

“The way that Alabama statute is written is that whenever there’s a certain volume of child pornographic images, then the intent can be understood,” Hammac said. “The way that it was being disseminated and shared further communicates that there was an act or an effort to share or disseminate those images.”

According to 2023 Code of Alabama section 13A-12-192, any person who knowingly possesses obscene material depicting a person under the age of 17 with intent to disseminate is guilty of a Class B felony.

Shelby County Chief Deputy Clay Hammac expressed his gratitude to criminal investigators that work on child pornography cases such as this.

“Our criminal investigators dedicate a great deal of energy and effort in seeking justice for victims,” Hammac said. “Even still, cases like this involving images of minors being sexually exploited certainly have an impact on these investigators, but they are unwavering in their dedication to make sure that they are seeking justice for those victims. They are working tirelessly to make sure that the offenders spend the rest of their lives behind bars.”

Williams’s preliminary hearing is currently scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 15.

More information will be released as it becomes available.