LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock police and the Arkansas Internet Crimes Against Children task force served a search warrant at the home of former North Little Rock School Board member Trent Cox last week, a day before he resigned his seat saying the travel demands of his work had grown too great.
Investigators seized Cox's passport, computer components, photo disks and documents, records show.
Cox, 46, has not been charged with a crime. Reached by phone at his office, he declined to comment.
"Yes, that search warrant?" he asked. "You'll have to speak with my attorney."
Cox's attorney, Little Rock lawyer Jack Lassiter, said he could only confirm that the search occurred and that it was connected to a child pornography investigation. Lassiter also stressed thatno charges had been filed against Cox.
Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said Cox was the target of a criminal child pornography investigation that included a Little Rock police detective assigned to the state's Internet Crimes Against Children task force.
"He is someone we have identified as a suspect," Hastings said.
Investigators served the warrant at 6 a.m. Thursday at Cox's home on Northline Drive in North Little Rock. According to a Little Rock police report written afterward, investigators seized three desktop and three laptop computers, an external hard drive, two photo disks, another digital memory card, a composition notebook, six CDs, and Cox's passport. Nothing in the report describes the contents of the documents or the electronics.
Cox, who is the father of two teenagers and the husband of a teacher in the North Little Rock district, resigned from the school board the next day.
Cox was elected three times to represent Zone 6 on the seven-member school board, an area that includes most of the Overbrook and Timber Creek subdivisions and a section of Lakewood. Most recently, Cox ran unopposed in 2008. His term was to expire in September 2011. As of Monday, his name remained on the school board's Web site.
School district spokesman Shara Brazear declined to comment.
The day Cox resigned, he told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he "agonized" over the decision for more than a year as his travel schedule increased at work. Cox is vice president for sales and marketing at KD Sales in Sherill, which makes and sells earth-moving equipment. Trips to Mexico or California would force him to miss too many meetings, he said in that interview. He said he chose to resign "with a heavy heart."
"I've got to think not only about what is good for me and my business," he said in the interview last week, "but also about what is good for the district."
Arkansas, Pages 7, 12 on 09/22/2009