Tips from agencies in Australia and New Zealand led to the arrests of two West Michigan men on child porn charges.
Daniel Ashendorf, from Rockford, is charged with possessing child pornography. Westley Keyes, from Battle Creek, is charged with producing child pornography.
According to court documents, a special agent with the Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) in Grand Rapids received a lead from a HIS office in Australia that included a report from the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (NZDIA). The report detailed a link found on the dark web that included files depicting the sexual exploitation or abuse of children.
NZDIA requested the subscriber information for the files, which led investigators to Daniel Ashendorf.
Investigators executed a search warrant at Ashendorf’s home in Rockford and found 1,251 videos and 371 images of child pornography on his computer. According to court documents, many of the images and videos depicted infants and toddlers and bestiality. Investigators say the images and videos had been downloaded from the internet.
Court documents state that Ashendorf admitted to investigators that he routinely downloaded child pornography from the internet.
Ashendorf was convicted in 2016 of possessing child sexually abusive material and using a computer to commit a crime and was sentenced to 122 days in jail and three years of probation.
He’s now charged with possessing child pornography.
In a separate case, investigators arrested Westley Keyes from Battle Creek for producing child porn after receiving a tip from the Queensland Police Service (QPS) in Australia regarding 42 child abuse images uploaded by a user on the dark web.
Investigators say the user that uploaded them was Westley Keyes.
QPS reported that metadata from the images indicated the photos were taken in the Battle Creek area between May and August 2020.
QPS shared what they had found with a special agent with the HIS in Grand Rapids in September 2021.
According to court documents, Keyes took photos of two girls – one teenager and a child between the ages of 2 and 4.
Investigators interviewed the girls and they confirmed Keyes had taken photos of them.
Keyes is now charged with producing child pornography.
According to court documents, Keyes was convicted in 2016 of distributing or promoting child sexually abusive activity.
