A 35-year-old Parker man twice convicted of child sex exploitation and arrested again on June 11 used data privacy tools to hide that he was trading child sexual abuse material, according to a Douglas County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.
Stacy Garrett Suppeland was arrested at his Parker home on June 11 after Douglas County deputies searched his home and found devices connected to an email account that was sending and receiving child sexual abuse material.
A sheriff’s investigator began looking into the case on Jan. 31 based on a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s cyber tip line submitted by a Yahoo employee, according to Suppeland’s arrest affidavit.
The tip involved an email account that had sent or received 10 videos depicting child sexual abuse and was linked to a Denver-area phone number.
While detectives initially found the number was connected to someone living in Oregon, they later found it matched the phone number Suppeland listed on his sex offender registration paperwork every year since 2020.
Under his previous convictions, Suppeland was barred from contact with anyone 18 years old and younger and from using the internet for any reason other than school, according to the affidavit.
In addition to trading child sexual abuse material, detectives found emails in the Yahoo account for dating and virtual private network websites, which hide someone’s location when using the internet.
When investigators served a search warrant at Suppeland’s home in Parker, they called the phone associated with the Yahoo account and found it was the same one he was carrying in his pocket. The phone also had messages between Suppeland and a girl who appeared to be 16 years old in which Suppeland asked her for “nudes,” according to the affidavit. The phone’s photo gallery also contained an explicit photo of a man’s genitals.
Suppeland was arrested after investigators served the search warrant.
Prosecutors on Monday charged Suppeland with five counts of sexual exploitation of a child and two sentence-enhancing counts for a habitual sex offender against children, according to court records. Suppeland is in custody on a $500,000 bail and is set to appear in court July 12.
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Originally Published: June 18, 2024 at 3:08 p.m.
