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Police: Woman finds child porn on boyfriend's phone

According to the police report, she had looked at the phone because she had concerns her boyfriend was cheating on her.
Credit: Peoria Police Department

A woman looking for evidence her boyfriend was cheating on her ended up turning him in for child pornography, according to Peoria police.  

The woman told police her live-in boyfriend, 31-year-old Laurence Abbott, was sitting on the couch looking at his phone when she noticed a photo of what looked like a child’s privates.

According to the police report, she had looked at the phone because she had concerns he was cheating on her.

The woman said she later went through emails on Abbott’s phone and found three pictures of what she described as a child’s vagina. She said she recognized the fabric of the couch the girl was sitting on as their own couch. She also described seeing a thumb in the photo she said she was sure was Abbott’s because she trims his nails.

Officers interviewed Abbott, who denied having any child porn on his phone. He told police he was drinking with his next-door neighbor the night before and that, at some point, the neighbor left for a 10-minute beer run. The neighbor had asked Abbott to watch his 4-year-old daughter.

Abbott said he watched her for a few minutes and brought her inside, where she sat on the couch. He told police this lasted for a couple of minutes and that there was no one else in the home at the time. Abbott denied anything happened during that time.

An officer asked Abbott if he could look through his phone, and Abbott unlocked it for him. The officer found nothing at the time, and the phone was seized as evidence.

Police returned to the home later that night for a welfare check. Officers learned Abbott had tried to get his mother to pay for a plane ticket to Pennsylvania and was saying that his life was over and there was no reason to live.

The next day, the girlfriend called police and told them Abbott admitted to taking six photos of the girl’s vagina while the girl was sitting on the couch in his house.

She agreed to record a phone conversation with Abbott for police. During the recording, Abbott said he was drunk and blacked out the night the pictures were taken and that he had partial memories of what happened.

Abbott said he had taken four to six pictures of the girl’s privates and that he was going to turn himself in for taking them. He also admitted to deleting the pictures off his phone when he realized what he had done, according to court documents.

Abbott was arrested later that afternoon after he agreed to meet his girlfriend at Pioneer Park in Peoria. He was booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail.  

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