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July 2, 2009

Innocent Images Task Force nets another

Mark Millican

A Rocky Face man is charged with 55 counts of child exploitation for possessing photogrpahs of child pornography, law enforcement officials said. No local children are involved.

Terry Alan Roper, 54, of 4451 Jimmy Drive, was charged on Thursday by the Innocent Images Task Force. Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Dalton Police Department officers made the arrest.

District Attorney Kermit McManus said the number of counts refer to “the different acts alleged in different photographs he possessed.” Although McManus said he was familiar with the case, he was not in his office when contacted and did not know if the photos were on a computer.

“They were not local kids, but a couple of the children were specifically identifiable through other agencies,” he said. “But they were not from here.”

Because the task force is FBI-originated, McManus said information was “limited” and there was much he couldn’t talk about at this time. A phone call to the FBI regional office in Atlanta was not immediately returned.

A next door neighbor, Cynthia Carlson, said Roper has lived beside her family for more than 10 years but keeps mostly to himself.

“I’ve talked to him maybe twice in 14 years,” she said on Thursday. “This is weird, because I saw him out the other day when I was walking and spoke with him. He told me he’d been laid off for about a year. There might be another truck over there every now and then, but he told me if he ever died it’d be weeks before anyone found him.”

Roper is expected to face a bond hearing before a Magistrate Court judge today.

The Innocent Images Task Force is a regional task force that targets online sexual child exploitation and child pornography. Officers with the Dalton Police Department, the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, the Catoosa County Sheriff’s Office and the Fort Oglethorpe Police Department participate.

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