LITTLE ROCK -- A 28-year-old Greenbrier man was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Little Rock on accusations he threatened to kill a girl and her family unless she sent him nude images of herself and demanded a Benton woman send him pictures of her daughter.
Jordan R. Cutler was charged with producing, transporting and distributing child pornography. Last month, a federal magistrate judge refused to release him from custody pending the grand jury's review of his case, saying Cutler posed a threat to the safety of the community if set free.
According to an FBI agent's affidavit that was used to arrest Cutler in April on a criminal complaint, the events leading to the charges began in November, when Instagram notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a user had uploaded child pornography. The agent said the user, who also uploaded his own photograph, was identified as Cutler, who operated a lawn and landscaping business in Greenbrier.
The next day, a 13-year-old girl to whose Instagram account the video and picture were posted was interviewed at the Child Advocacy Center in Arkadelphia. She said that two days earlier, someone had contacted her via Instagram and then through Snapchat, threatening to kidnap, torture and murder her if she didn't give him nude images of herself.
The girl complied with the demand by sending a video, but said the person then instructed her to molest and photograph her younger sibling or he would rape, torture and kill them both, FBI Agent Aaron Green wrote.
A Benton County woman then reported Feb. 5 to her sheriff's office that she had been contacted by someone on Facebook who claimed to know where she worked and lived, and who said he had been watching her, according to the affidavit.
It said the person sent the video of the 13-year-old girl to the woman, demanding that she watch the video and then send pictures of her nieces, if she had any, and her daughter.
Green said the FBI, using a search warrant, identified the Facebook user as "Dylan Hook," a believed alias that Cutler uses to solicit and extort sexual images over Facebook. "Hook" had also sent the Benton County woman a photograph of himself, which was a photo of Cutler, the agent noted.
NW News on 06/06/2020