MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A West Virginia man is accused of bragging about having a large collection of child pornography, at times using the names “MrChildPorn” and “MrToxix,’” authorities said.
According to the West Virginia State Police, Garrett Michael Highlander, 20, of Morgantown, was arrested on Aug. 21, WBOY reported. He was charged with possession of material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
State police said that Highlander allegedly used the Discord platform to share images of child pornography, West Virginia Metro News reported.
According to a criminal complaint, troopers served a warrant a Morgantown residence after receiving 48 cypertip reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of a man “boasting of his large cache of ‘child porn.’”
The information shared with troopers stated that Highlander bragged openly about his collection of the illicit images, West Virginia Metro News reported.
Troopers said that Highlander allegefly posted about possessing child pornography, with “usernames that were various iterations of ‘MrToxix,’ although he also used the name MrChildPorn on one or more occasions.”
In the cybertip, troopers learned that Highlander would allegedly message individuals on Discord, WBOY reported. Users on the platform told authorities that Highlander would either send the images online or through direct messages, according to the television station.
Troopers also saw “numerous chat conversations” where Highlander attempted to use Discord’s AI feature to search for explicit images of infants, and he also “asked repeatedly if anyone was willing to trade ‘cp’ with him,” WBOY reported.
When confronted by troopers, Highlander allegedly said “he only made the statements in these chats to be inflammatory” and that “he was ‘trolling’ and ‘rage baiting’ because he found it highly amusing,” according to the criminal complaint.
Highlander was arrested and booked into the North Central Regional Jail, according to WBOY. He was being held on a $100,000 bond.