Feds charge Minnesota Homeland Security agent on child sexual abuse videos
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A Minnesota-based Homeland Security agent is charged with exploiting a 17-year-old girl to produce child sex abuse videos. Timothy Ryan Gregg of Eagan, 51, is the second Twin Cities law enforcement official in the last month to face federal child sex abuse charges.
According to court documents unsealed Wednesday, Gregg was set to be among the dozens of federal agents to execute search warrants in a major law enforcement operation this week. The feds raided eight Twin Cities locations — including a Lake Street restaurant — as part of an investigation into drug smuggling, human trafficking and money laundering.
Instead, Gregg was arrested and booked into the Sherburne County Jail on charges that he made videos of himself abusing a teenager.
In an affidavit accompanying a criminal complaint, FBI Special Agent Tracee Mergen writes that the teen’s father contacted Rochester police last week after finding multiple sexually explicit images and videos on his daughter’s phone of the girl “and an older man engaging in sexual activity.”
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The alleged victim has a restraining order against her father. But Mergen writes that the man looked through his daughter’s phone after she left it in a car. The teen connected with Gregg via the app Tinder and “told officers that she believed the sex was consensual, even though she was 17 years old.”
In the affidavit, Mergen writes that Gregg, who’s also a task force officer with the FBI, sent the explicit images that he took to the teen and some appeared to have been shot in a hotel room. Gregg allegedly used his official ICE/Homeland Security email account to make reservations at a hotel nine times between March and May.
The FBI interviewed hotel employees, who said Gregg always arrived and left alone but could have brought another person into the building through the parking ramp.
If convicted of producing child sexual abuse material, Gregg faces a mandatory minimum federal prison sentence of 15 years. Gregg made his first appearance in federal court on Wednesday where Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster ordered that he remain jailed.
In an email statement to MPR News, defense attorney Ryan Pacyga says his client has had a “long, distinguished career in law enforcement” and had dedicated his life to public service.
Pacyga says Gregg had been told repeatedly that the alleged victim is an adult and was lied to about her age. “He had no idea he was dealing with a minor and was shocked when he learned otherwise. He is more than what he is accused of here, and we will see him through this.”
In an unrelated case, a federal grand jury in May indicted Minnesota State Trooper Jeremy F. Plonski on charges that he repeatedly sexually abused an infant and created videos of the attacks. Plonski, 29, also remains jailed. Neither defendant has entered a plea.
A 24-hour statewide sexual violence and domestic violence hotline is available in Minnesota. You can call Minnesota Day One at (866) 223-1111 or text (612) 399-9995.
