FBI agents arrest man in raid on Amesbury home

Dave Rogers, The Daily News of Newburyport, Mass.
·2 min read

May 12—AMESBURY — A local man faces a federal charge of distributing child pornography after his arrest Tuesday morning by FBI agents only minutes after they entered his Sparhawk Street home.

Authorities said Daniel Stasiak, 43, allegedly sent child pornography using the chat application platform Kik Messenger on April 29, 2020, according to a complaint filed the same day in U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine.

The court complaint said Stasiak "knowingly distributed child pornography using the internet and the chat application Kik, which are means and facilities of interstate commerce." He will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Portland.

A half dozen FBI agents raided Stasiak's home Tuesday to conduct "court-authorized activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation," Boston FBI spokesperson Kristen Setera said.

The agents were assisted by local law enforcement, according to Amesbury police Lt. Kevin Donovan.

An FBI agent in Milwaukee was monitoring Kik Messenger on April 26, 2020, for possible child pornography distribution. The agent noticed a user with the screen name "danst977" distributing child sexual abuse material using the platform, the complaint said.

Three days later, the agent noticed the same user distributed a second child sexual abuse video, according to court records.

The FBI served a subpoena to Kik requesting subscriber data associated with "danst977." Soon after, the company provided agents with Stasiak's name, email address and internet protocol number.

Using the IP number, agents were able to track Stasiak to an Ipswich address. Agents were also able to track down photos of Stasiak through the Registry of Motor Vehicles, and those photos matched ones used on his Kik and Facebook accounts, according to court records.

On Tuesday, agents executed a search warrant of Stasiak's Sparhawk Street apartment and seized several electronic items.

"Preliminary review revealed the presence of a large quantity of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct," FBI Special Agent Adam Morin wrote in his affidavit to the court.

Upon interviewing Stasiak, he admitted to sharing and accessing child pornography for 20 years as well as sharing and purchasing child pornography on Kik.

"He accessed child pornography from Person A's residence in York, Maine, in 2020," Morin wrote in his report.

For several hours, half a dozen cars, some with Maine license plates, were parked outside the Sparhawk Street home.

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