TALKEETNA — A Talkeetna man is facing child pornography charges following an Alaska State Troopers search of his computer after allegedly catching him cyber-dating a 13-year-old California girl.

John Walter Adams, 29, was arrested Monday at his home, charged with possessing and distributing child pornography and electronically sending indecent material to a minor.

According to an affidavit AST Sgt. Derek DeGraaf filed with the case, troopers first got wind of Adams on Feb. 19, 2008, when the girl’s mother called from California to say she’d discovered her daughter had been cyber-dating a man whom she later found listed on Alaska’s Sex Offender Registry. The mother said her daughter was playing Everquest II — an online role-playing game — in July 2007 when she met a character named McWolf, later identified as Adams.

A detective with the Kern County (Calif.) Sheriff’s office talked to the girl who said that she and McWolf would talk through headsets while playing the game or chat using Yahoo! Messenger.

“She developed a crush on ‘McWolf’ and agreed to go steady with him in September 2007,” DeGraaf writes, based on the California detective’s report.

While the two were dating onling, the girl told law enforcement she thought he was 13 years old. McWolf sent her a picture of a boy who seemed age-appropriate. She said the chats eventually turned sexual. At some point, he e-mailed her picture of his penis, the girl told investigators.

On Christmas 2007, Adams sent her a teddy bear and a necklace from a Zales jewelry store.

The whole affair ended in February 2008 when McWolf sent her another picture of himself. In this photo, he appeared much older than before, with a beard and long hair, wearing a black cowboy hat, DeGraaf wrote based on the California detective’s report.

“When [the girl] questioned ‘McWolf’ about this, he explained that he looked older because he had a degenerative aging disease,” a condition he hadn’t previously disclosed to her, he claimed, because children at school often made fun of him, DeGraaf wrote.

After that, the girl told investigators she immediately cut off all contact with McWolf. Her mother later found him on the sex offender list.

On June 2, 2008 troopers searched Adams’ home on Wolf Tract Road, seizing a computer, a hard drive and multiple CDs and DVDs. They also interviewed Adams.

“Adams admitted to chatting with a girl from California and that they had a three- to four-month relationship. He admitted sending her the necklace and the teddy bear. He admitted sending her pornographic pictures of a male penis while having cyber sex. He thought the girl was older,” DeGraaf says in his report.

During their investigation, troopers quickly learned the reason Adams was in the Alaska Sex Offender Registry was a 2001 case in which Adams was tagged during a federal investigation into Internet child porn as the likely distributor of some illegal images. The Anchorage Police Department searched his computer, turning up thousands of images, DeGraaf wrote.

Troopers going over the case file in that incident noted that at the time Adams told police he had been dating a 16-year-old California girl. His probation in that case ended in September 2007.

When authorities searched his home in Talkeetna, Adams also told troopers that during the 2001 investigation Anchorage police missed some stuff, DeGraaf wrote.

This time around, troopers searched his computer and other media, and “over 3,000 images and movies of child sexual abuse were found and documented,” the report says.

According to DeGraaf’s affidavit, by Alaska law, more than 100 images constitutes proof of intent to distribute.

After troopers conducted their search, Adams was finally arrested Monday. He was jailed on $50,000 bond and will need to find a third party to take responsibility for him before he can be released.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.