FORT WORTH, Texas —A traffic stop in Palo Pinto County led investigators to the discovery of nearly 20,000 images of child pornography on a man’s cellphone in September, according to federal court documents.
Officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety stopped Brian Matthew Morton on Sept. 1 for speeding. They smelled marijuana in the vehicle and arrested Morton at the time for possession.
They subsequently searched Morton and his vehicle and found 100 pairs of women’s underwear, 14 sex toys, marijuana, ecstasy and three cellphones, a criminal complaint says.
On Sept. 4, investigators got a warrant to search Morton’s cellphones and discovered child pornography on all three, the document says. In all, investigators documented 19,270 images of child pornography or child exploitative material, the document says. He was arrested earlier this month by federal authorities on the child porn charge.
Morton told investigators that he found the pornography using the website “Tumblr.”
Earlier this month, Tumblr —a social networking and blog website —announced it would prohibit pornography and other adult content beginning on Dec. 17. The announcement came weeks after Apple announced they’d remove the Tumblr app from their store because images of child pornography made it past the website’s filers.
“Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content,” Tumblr’s CEO Jeff D’Onofrio said.
Many of the images on Morton’s cellphone were screenshots from the Tumblr dashboard, the document says.
Morton was arrested on Dec. 20 on a charge of receiving child pornography. He will be prosecuted in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth.