Emory professor arraigned on child porn charges

A professor at Emory University was arraigned Wednesday on federal child pornography charges.

Kevin M. Sullivan, 60, was arrested June 15 after federal agents executed search warrants at his office in the Department of Epidemiology at Emory, as well as his home. Authorities seized two laptop computers, several flash drives, a tablet, an iPhone 6 and an external hard drive that had child pornography files, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Sullivan's arrest resulted from a special investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center called "Operation Amateur Lover," the newspaper reported.

Swiss law enforcement seized in October 2014 a server that was hosting child pornography, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release sent Wednesday. Log-in information from the server showed that someone at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health had accessed the pornography using the university’s Wi-Fi.

With help from Emory’s Information Technology Department, agents determined Sullivan was the person accessing the Swiss website.

When a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent tried to interview Sullivan at the professor’s office, he invoked his Miranda rights and left, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Sullivan was indicted Wednesday on the child pornography charges by a federal grand jury. He was released from the DeKalb County Jail on a $25,000 bond last month.

“Child predators come from all walks of life, as the accused in this case clearly demonstrates,” said Nick Annan, head of ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Atlanta, in the press release.

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