UPDATE: Coffee vendor charged with having, sharing child porn

PALMER — Alaska State Troopers say an undercover investigation of online file sharing led them to a Palmer coffee stand and a computer loaded with child pornography.

Roland Goossen, 27, was arrested Tuesday and charged with possession and distribution of child porn and being out of compliance with his requirements to register as a sex offender.

An affidavit trooper investigator Nathan Bucknall filed with the case says the investigation began Jan. 6. Sgt. Derek DeGraaf with the troopers’ Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force began proactively looking for Alaskans trading child pornography using file-sharing software.

DeGraaf eventually zeroed in on a Palmer IP address for a computer sharing a folder on the web.

“This shared folder had 265 files in it, some of which had titles that were indicative of child pornography,” Bucknall says in the affidavit. “(DeGraaf) downloaded nine images and two movies.”

Bucknall writes that all nine images were of child porn. One of the movies couldn’t play but the other showed a 13- to 18-year-old girl having sex with an adult man.

With that evidence in hand, Bucknall wrote, Special Agent Matt Kimmel with Immigration and Customs Enforcement got a subpoena for subscriber records and served it on Matanuska Telephone Association.

The subscriber turned out to be an account for Custom Coffee, a drive-up coffee stand on the Glenn Highway just south of Palmer. In early February, Bucknall and DeGraaf each visited the stand once. They then got a search warrant and, along with agents from ICE, descended on the coffee stand March 2.

“Roland Goossen was contacted inside of the coffee shack. He stated that he owned this coffee shop along with other family members. He said he worked at the coffee shop for awhile each day and he lived in the travel trailer next to it by himself,” Bucknall wrote. “Goossen stated that he does not think he has any file sharing software on his computer. Goossen then requested to speak to an attorney.”

Their search actually turned up two computers, a PC and a Macintosh. Goossen told investigators the PC was his. An employee of the coffee stand claimed the Mac was hers.

The PC had 110 images and nine movies of child pornography, Bucknall wrote. It also contained the popular online file sharing software Limewire.

Running Goossen’s name through police databases, Bucknall wrote, they found he’d been convicted in 2002 of sexual abuse of a minor. His address in the sex offender registry was in Anchorage but, Bucknall pointed out, he told investigators he lived next to the coffee stand, which made him out of compliance with his registration requirements.

Goossen was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $15,000 bail. Jail records Thursday afternoon showed he was still there.

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