Natrona County Man Charged With Child Pornography Crimes

Law enforcement authorities have requested a warrant for the arrest of a Natrona County man for allegedly having downloaded more than 1,600 files of child pornography, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court on Friday.

Gregory Scott Gage Jr., is charged with one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of access with intent to view child pornography, according to the criminal complaint written and filed by a special agent with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.

If convicted, receipt of child pornography under federal law is punishable by five to 20 years imprisonment.

Access with intent to view child pornography is punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment.

Other penalties include five years to life supervised probation, a $5,000 special assessment pursuant to the Victims of Sex Trafficking Act of 2015, and not less than $3,000 per victim pursuant to the Amy, Vicky and Andy Child Pornography Assistance Act of 2018. The total assessment under the 2018 law could reach $52,000, according to the criminal complaint.

The government will seek to detain Gage, according to a motion filed in federal court. He would be held on no bond, according to the criminal complaint.

The federal court records did not indicate when he would make an initial appearance to hear the charges against him, nor did they indicate he had an attorney.

The criminal complaint noted that law enforcement in Natrona County had contacts with Gage, born in 1993, throughout 2021.

The case started in December when the DCI received a lead from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which had received a lead from Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., about a phone number receiving hundreds of files of child pornography, according to the criminal complaint.

The special agent later determined the phone number was registered to Verizon Wireless, which was summoned to provide information about the number. The number apparently belonged to Gage's parents.

The agent also reviewed some files that included images of prepubescent and toddler-age females, according to the criminal complaint.

In March, the agent obtained a search warrant from a Natrona County Circuit Court judge and learned what computer devices had been associated with the phone number.

In reviewing the files found associated with the phone number, some were still images, some were .GIF files, 38 files depicted sadomasochistic activity, and 12 files depicted child pornography with the involvement of animals, according to the complaint.

Some of the files also showed selfies with Gage.

In all, 1,655 images of child pornography had been downloaded on the phone.

On July 14, two DCI agents observed Gage working on a landscaping project in the area of South McKinley and 18th streets.

On Wednesday, the agent obtained a federal search warrant for the phone.

Thursday, the agent, Casper DCI agents, and Cheyenne Homeland Security Investigations executed a search warrant for Gage at an address in Bar Nunn.

Gage was taken to the Casper office of the DCI, informed of and understood his Miranda rights, and admitted that he sometimes obtained images of child pornography through his cellphone's internet browser, according to the criminal complaint.

Gage said he would obtain child pornography images and later delete them.

However, the agent observed 11 files of child pornography from Aug. 1 through Thursday, according to the complaint.