Investigator claims former deputy used Snapchat to download pornographic images of children

Court records indicate a Santa Clarita Valley man who worked as a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy is accused of using a Snapchat alias to download multiple pornographic images of children, which ultimately led to his dismissal and criminal charges, according to a court transcript released Tuesday to The Signal.   In his May 7 testimony, Sgt. Roger Ballesteros of the LASD Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau said a detective with the LASD Special Victims Bureau shared a cyber tip Jan. 31, 2020, regarding a sworn deputy and underage pornography being published to the deputy’s personal Snapchat account.   The former deputy’s defense counsel has challenged the merit of Ballesteros’ suspicion of his client on the grounds that the investigator didn’t interview any Snapchat employee about their company policies and procedures, a medical doctor had not confirmed the age of the children in the photos allegedly downloaded and, outside of the original web alert sent to law enforcement, none of the images existed on Scott Rodriguez’s social media account when deputies began to collect evidence last spring.   Encrypted Wi-Fi signal  Before officially handing the case over to Ballesteros and the Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau, Special Victims Unit detectives reportedly conducted a warrant search on the location, finding that the IP address associated with the image downloads was run through an encrypted Wi-Fi signal, where Rodriguez, a K9 handler…
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