A 27-year old Checotah man has been charged with numerous heinous crimes involving young children. Brandon Lakota Morlin was charged Monday with child sexual abuse; aggravated possession of child sexual abuse material including more than 100 images and child sexual abuse material – buying, possession/procuring.
Associate District Judge Brendon Bridges entered a not guilty plea on behalf of the defendant and set bond at $900,000 and ordered him to stay away from any victim listed in the allegations or any other children under the age of 18.
A pre-preliminary conference will be held at 9 a.m. on May 14.
Agencies involved in the Investigation include the McIntosh County Sheriff ’s Department, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. District Attorney Investigator Kevin Branscum is the lead investigator.
Detectives Matt Youngblood and Scotty Pelly from the Sheriff ’s Department are assigned to the investigation.
The FBI agents are also assisting in the matter.
Officers say this is a very complex investigation, with thousands of images and videos to be reviewed.
“Unfortunately, this has become far too common in our County,” Branscum said. “We would encourage everyone if they see something to say something. Oftentimes in cases like this, we hear people say ‘I knew something was wrong,’ but do not report it. McIntosh County has a Multi-Disciplinary Team that meets once a month to staff these cases.
McIntosh County averages about ten childrelated cases a month.
Branscum said an FBI agent notified him about a tip about the suspect being involved in underage pornography.
Branscum learned the suspect was in the county jail on an unrelated matter and obtained his cell phone.
He said he observed numerous sexually explicit images involving children between the ages of 1 and 8.
Branscum then got a search warrant to digitally extract and examine the phone content further.
He said he observed 98 photographs and 13 videos depicting sexually explicit content including sexual intercourse involving juveniles and adult men.
One of the videos allegedly involved the suspect and a one-year old, according to the probable cause affidavit.
