Man arrested on child porn charges

PALMER — A tip by the Microsoft Corporation lead to the Wednesday arrest of a Palmer man on child pornography charges, authorities said.

Brandon Muston, 34, faces four counts of possession of child pornography, according court documents and the Alaska State Troopers.

Officials from Microsoft first notified troopers in August that a user had tried to email images depicting sexual abuse to another user, according to a troopers media release.

The Troopers Technical Crimes Unit investigated the accusation for months before executing a search warrant on Muston’s residence, according to the dispatch.

Muston was booked in to Mat-Su Pretrial detention facility on $15,000 bail, plus court-approved third-party custodian requirements, according to the release.

Troopers did not immediately respond to inquiries for more detail on the case.

The charges constitute Muston’s lone felony case on record, according to Alaska courts documents. He has faced a variety of minor offense charges in the past, according to court documents.

Muston remained in custody Thursday evening, corrections documents show.

Muston’s Facebook page contained a variety of diagrams of the planets and photos of a bald, bearded man. His Facebook profile shows a man, apparently in his thirties, in a tuxedo.

Microsoft routinely uses a program that screens e-mail photos against a database of known illegal image files provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to a statement issued through the company’s public relations firm.

“When that system detects a match, we forward the image file to the center as required by law, which in turn notifies law enforcement,” the statement reads in part. “Our terms of services prohibit storing or sharing images of child sexual exploitation and make clear that doing so is against the law.”

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com