Past sex offender gets new charges | Local News | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

Coolidge has convictions for sexual assault and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child in 1997, HSI said in court records.

The records also show Coolidge was on the Vermont Sex Offender Registry until at least 2017, but he is no longer included in the Vermont list, which fails to include all offenders and allows some sex offenders to drop off.

Coolidge — or somebody using his account — made statements on the dark web that indicate he might have sexually assaulted or committed a lewd act with a child at least recently and was looking to set up another chance to engage the child, court records indicate.

Montpelier Police Chief Eric W. Nordenson, along with a HSI special agent, stopped by Coolidge’s apartment at 81 Berlin St. with a new police truck to show it to the suspect on Wednesday, court records show. While in the driveway, Coolidge posed for a picture with the police truck and was invited by an HSI agent to go to the city police station to talk about the investigation. He freely agreed and jumped into Nordenson’s vehicle for the ride.

HSI special agents based in South Burlington, along with Montpelier Police, later conducted a court-ordered search of Coolidge’s second-floor apartment on Berlin Street.

Coolidge admitted at the police station he was a “member” of a dark website that he called the “Boy’s Club” and that he used an assumed name, which had matched what HSI had uncovered, records show.

He explained the site is dedicated to those with a sexual interest in male children between the ages of 4 and 14 years old and that site rules dictated the age and gender of the persons posted and shared, the HSI reported.

HSI said the defendant explained new people in the club start off as a “guest” and later can move up to “registered guest” status before eventually having a chance to become a “member.”

Out of the more than 8,000 images or videos of sexually explicit depictions of children on the subject site, many had been previously identified as child pornography by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, HSI said.

Coolidge was due to appear for his initial hearing on the federal charges before Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle in U.S. District Court late Friday afternoon. However, prosecutors filed a request for a three-day continuance. They have filed a detention motion, noting there are no conditions of release that will keep the community safe or ensure that the convicted felon will appear for hearings.

The arrest was sparked by an initial investigation by HSI in Portland, Maine, which has been doing extensive work to crack into the dark web and trace the source of the child pornography that is freely exchanged. HSI said it is working to identify victims of child sexual abuse and to infiltrate and dismantle criminal organizations that operate child sexual abuse forums.

The dark web is designed to facilitate anonymous communication over the internet and networks have been created to facilitate the exchange, HSI said in court papers. The network will help mask the user’s actual IP address on the computer’s ISP address.

It was part of an investigation that an undercover HSI special agent connected with a user who posted a request for photos of boys involving certain sexual abuse, court records show. The conversations continued over the Internet and HSI agents were able to track the source, records show.