JOHNSON COUNTY, Ind. — A Plainfield man who was an Indiana National Guard member now faces a felony charge after police say he uploaded child pornography while at Camp Atterbury.

Court documents filed against 22-year-old Michael A. Pellom show that he currently faces a level 4 felony charge of child exploitation in relation to the accusations.

The investigation into Pellom began in October of 2022 after Indianapolis Metro police received a tip from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The tip said that a central Indiana man had been using the ‘Kik’ messaging app to upload and send child pornography materials.

According to a probable cause affidavit against Pellom, the tip stated that in August of 2022 a Kik user named “specialmonkey1” had uploaded five files of apparent child pornography.

An IMPD detective that received the uploaded files said they were that videos portrayed multiple female children fully nude and engaging in sex acts. In some of the videos, the PC said, adult men were seen ejaculating on and engaging in oral and vaginal sex with the young females.

“Based on their small body size and lack of physical development, the children appear to be less than 12 years of age,” the PC states after a description of each of the files.

A search warrant into the “specialmonkey1” Kik account revealed that a temporary/disposable email address was used to create the account. IMPD’s investigation also revealed that several IP addresses in the Indianapolis area were utilized by the account.

While investigating the account and the IP addresses, detectives uncovered that a common thread was a Plainfield phone number, later identified as Michael Pellom’s.

When detectives called the phone number in November 2022, a man who identified himself as Pellom answered. Additionally, Facebook accounts and Google accounts linked to both the phone number and IP addresses were found to belong to Pellom.

In an interview with Pellom in January 2023, court docs state that he confirmed the phone number associated with the IP addresses was his long-time cell number.

During that same interview, detectives said Pellom told them he operated a Dropbox account and a Snapchat account linked to his email address.

“After an approximate 45-minute conversation, Michael Pellom requested a lawyer.”

Probable Cause Affidavit filed in Johnson County Superior Court 2

After filing search warrants for both Pellom’s Snapchat and Dropbox accounts, detectives discovered no child pornography on the accounts. However, they did discover that he had recently changed his Snapchat username from “special1monkey” to “michael-pellom”.

“Detective Zots recognized the username special1monkey to be similar to the username of the offending Kik account, specialmonkey1,” the PC reads.

During Pellom’s January interview with IMPD, the PC states he also told detectives he was an active member of the Indiana National Guard.

While searching Pellom’s Dropbox account, a 2022 National Guard training schedule was discovered by detectives. The schedule, the PC states, showed that Pellom’s annual training was set for August 2022, which is close to the time phone records show he was at Camp Atterbury.

Once investigators discovered this connection to Camp Atterbury, they began looking at geolocations provided by Pellom’s Snapchat account.

That research, the PC states, showed that Pellom’s mobile device accessed his Snapchat account at Camp Atterbury just 32 minutes after the child pornography was uploaded to Kik in August 2022. This information, the PC states, led detectives to believe he uploaded the illegal files while at the military post.

Following the January interview with Pellom at his home in Plainfield, IMPD crews seized several of his electronic devices to be searched.

The PC states that detectives found dozens of cached images of child pornography on Pellom’s Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

The affidavit explains that the images being cached means Pellom had previously deleted them, but that smaller versions were still saved in the phone’s Android Gallery app.

While detectives state that they were unable to determine how the original child porn photos were acquired or viewed by Pellom, they were able to connect three of the cached images to the original tip on the Kik account.

A warrant for Pellom’s arrest was issued on Monday, court records show, and was served on Wednesday. He was then booked into the Johnson County Jail.

Records show that Pellom’s bond was set at $2,500 and that he has since paid it. He was later released from jail and an initial hearing into his case was held on Thursday. He now faces one felony charge of child exploitation.