A Chase County man is facing federal charges in connection with a child pornography case.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging 27-year-old Walter Haskin of Cottonwood Falls with one count of attempted distribution of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. According to a criminal complaint, the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force launched an investigation after Dropbox submitted a tip through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children hotline indicating the file sharing service said it had detected child pornography uploaded to an account.

Haskin is already a registered sex offender. He was previously convicted of criminal sexual assault against an 11-year-old  boy in Paxton, Illinois

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and the Wichita Police Department are investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Molly Gordon and Jason Hart are prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.’