FBI taps Chico kiddie porn suspect

A Chico man accused of molesting kids and taking part in a child pornography ring made a dubious kind of history last September, when he was arrested by agents who, for the first time ever, were able to monitor his every keystroke over the Internet for a period of three weeks.

Jason Heath Morgan, 26, was the first suspect to be caught under a new federal law that allows real-time, electronic wiretapping of people suspected of trading or distributing child porn or attempting to seduce minors online. According to the charges pending against him, Morgan was involved in both.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Laurel White said that, because the case was still pending, she was unable to detail the evidence against Morgan or to comment on what was presented to a federal judge that led him to approve of the wiretap. That information is sealed by the court and won’t be available until it comes up in a trial, she said. But White did confirm that Morgan’s arrest had led to the capture of at least three other suspected child porn traffickers.

Morgan, who is also charged in Butte County with several acts of lewd conduct and sex with a minor, is currently in federal custody awaiting trial for allegedly receiving, distributing, and helping to create child pornography. He has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said the federal investigation had led his office to file a criminal complaint based on statements by a teenage girl who claims to have had multiple sexual encounters with Morgan beginning when she was 14. Ramsey is waiting to see the results of Morgan’s federal case before he brings his own, he said.

“They got him first,” he said. “If they put him away for a long time, we’d have to evaluate what we’ve got and what would be in the best interest of the public.”

Morgan was investigated by a team of FBI agents under the PROTECT Act of 2003, which added kidnapping, sex trafficking and child porn to a list of crimes for which federal agents can get a wiretap warrant to investigate.

Unlike the controversial PATRIOT ACT, which authorizes monitoring and detention of suspected terrorists through a secretive and largely unaccountable judicial process, the PROTECT act works through the existing court system. It also established the first nationwide Amber Alert system to help track and find missing kids.

In Morgan’s case, a device was installed—either to his phone line or through an AOL account—that allowed FBI agents to follow his every move over the Internet as he allegedly sent and received photos of minors in sexually explicit poses. As the information was intercepted, a "taint" team of agents sifted through it and discarded information not vital to the case. Information relating to Morgan’s charges was then sent to a second team of investigators for further processing.