Meillo Schneider (Fond du Lac Co. Jail)
WARNING: Some may find the contents of this story disturbing.
FOND DU LAC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A man who allegedly accessed computer-generated child pornography faces seven counts of possession of virtual child pornography.
Meillo Schneider, 20, made an initial court appearance Wednesday. A $100,000 cash bond was set. He returns to court Jan. 3 for a preliminary hearing.
If convicted, each count carries a minimum of three years in prison, with a maximum of up to 25 years in the prison system.
According to the criminal complaint, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted the sheriff’s department about a Taycheedah address where the material was accessed.
“There was over 13,000 files included in the data provided by Amazon.com Inc. Corporation Service Company and Amazon Photos Trust and Safety Team. Det. Tikkanen briefly reviewed the material visually. Det. Tikkanen could see there were thousands of JPG and GIF files of anime/artistic renderings of child sexual abuse material,” the complaint states. “Some of these images were hard to distinguish if they were AI generated or if they were real, unidentified victims.”
The complaint details the contents of several of the files.
“It would appear this user was researching child sexual dolls. There were images that showed realistic looking children posed sexually,” the complaint states.
When interviewed by police Schneider “went on to explain that everything he watched was for self-gratification and not for sharing with other people,” according to the complaint.
When asked if he had ever viewed any pornography that would be considered illegal or dangerous, he replied “By this country’s standards, sadly yes. But I would hope this country also understands that I’m not going to re-distribute it or like sell it. Like I said I just want it for personal gratification,” the complaint states.
The complaint does not contain allegations Schneider generated any of the content.
Schneider also allegedly had sexually-based chats with someone who purportedly was a female teen from Canada.
Schneider also faces one count of resisting an officer for allegedly physically resisting officers when they arrested him last week.
Wisconsin lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year which added AI-generated content to child pornography possession laws.
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