Plain man arrested on 39 counts in child sexual abuse material case

PLAIN — A cyber tip received March 31 by the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office led investigators to what authorities describe as a large volume of child sexual abuse material being uploaded from within the county.

The report came through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a clearinghouse that works with law enforcement nationwide to identify and track the online distribution of exploitative content involving minors.

Detectives with the Sheriff’s Office, working as part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, identified the suspect as 43-year-old Christopher Milton of Plain and obtained a search warrant for his residence.

That warrant was served April 2 with assistance from the East Cascade SWAT Team, the Washington ICAC Task Force, and Homeland Security Investigations. Milton was taken into custody without incident and booked into the Chelan County Regional Jail.

He faces 19 counts of dealing in depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct and 20 counts of possession of such depictions.

Authorities use the term child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, to describe these files — a deliberate shift away from older terminology that can obscure what they represent. Each image or video documents the abuse of a child, and investigators and advocates emphasize that the continued possession and distribution of that material perpetuates that abuse.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media