Metro Police bust most prolific child porn operation in history

Metro Police have made an arrest in what they say appears to be the most expansive child pornography operation in the department’s history.

Jailed as a result of the bust is 34-year-old registered sex offender Jason Pate, who was arrested on Friday.

“From all of the evidence recovered thus far, this man appears to be a major distributor of child pornography to any deviant person in the world who has access to a computer,” Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas said. “The excellent work of [investigating Detective Rob Carrigan] and our computer forensics team has stopped any distribution of a multitude of repulsive and sickening images from Rainwood Drive.

“Unfortunately, there are untold other persons engaged in this activity in the United States and around the world.”

Pate is a registered sex offender following his 1997 federal court conviction in Michigan for exchanging child pornography over the internet, according to Police.

As a result of the latest allegations, Pate is for now charged with one court of sexual exploitation of a minor, Police said.

A tip about illegal activities led Carrigan and Sex Crimes detectives to execute a search warrant last week at Pate’s Rainwood Drive residence. The search found two laptops and a computer tower hard drive, which had a large cache of illicit images, video and erotic stories involving the molestation and exploitatin of minors.

Police said the forensic search of Pate’s computers would take several weeks.

Additional charges against Pate are expected.