By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A 49-year-old Stillwater man accused of possessing and distributing child pornography on his cell phone on or between April 11 and May 28 has been ordered to appear before District Judge Phillip Corley on Oct. 22 for arraignment in trial court.
Donald Eugene Lett, who was arrested at his apartment on June 2 by Stillwater Police Detective Sherae LeJeune, remains in the Payne County Jail on $75,000 bond on the two-count charge punishable by up to 30 years in prison on conviction.
“The Cyber Tip line Report showed the electronic service provider, Facebook, reported prohibited activity by user ‘Don Letts’ using the Facebook Screen/User Name ‘don.letts.39’. On April 18, 2021, this account sent five files, to include child sexual assault material, to the Facebook Screen/Username ‘nun.bizz.7’ via Facebook Messenger,” the affidavit alleged.
“A ‘profile’ image attached to the don.letts.39 account was included with the report. I checked the police department database for ‘Don Letts.’ The results showed a local citizen of ‘Donald Eugene Lett.’ There had been multiple arrests of Lett by the Stillwater Police Department. A comparison of his 2017 booking photo was a match to the Facebook profile picture of the ‘Don Letts’ account,” the detective alleged in her affidavit.
On May 28, “I contacted Lett in the driveway of his residence…I informed Lett that I was investigating a distribution of child pornography case in which his Facebook account was involved. Lett advised that he is interested in young males due to the fact he lives in a college town.
“He said he does search for ‘younger males’ on pornography websites. He had seen what appeared to be child pornography listed in the search results before, but he does not specifically search for it. He admitted to viewing a video of what appeared to be a 12-year-old boy. He closed the video when he noticed the boy was younger than he should be for pornography.
“He said he did not mean to download the video if he did. He also said if he sent the video to someone else, he did not mean to because he thought he got rid of it,” the detective alleged in her affidavit.
“Lett told me his first Facebook account was shut down a long time ago. In 2012 he created a secondary account with the username ‘Don Letts’. He added the ‘s’ to his last name so people would know who he was. This secondary Facebook account was shut down a couple months ago for an unknown reason.
“I know that Facebook deactivates user accounts when there is prohibited activity such as distributing child sexual assault material,” the detective wrote in her affidavit.
“I asked Lett if there was any child pornography on his cell phone. Lett replied, ‘God, I hope not and I’m saying that because I do have videos of younger guys and I don’t know for a fact if they were 17 or if 19, so I can’t prove that they were.’
“I told Lett I believed he shared child pornography using Facebook Messenger. Lett stated, ‘I didn’t mean to have it, but it’s there so what does that mean…what does that mean I’m asking you.’ I stated that if he did not mean to have it and it is there that is one thing, but he uploaded it and shared it with someone else. He said he does not remember doing that. He said he is not saying it didn’t happen, but he didn’t mean to,” the detective alleged in her affidavit.
“On Tuesday, June 1, 2021, I applied for and was granted a search warrant for Lett’s cellphone. A search of the cellphone showed there were multiple social media applications to include Telegram X, WhatsApp, MeetMe, Kik, Skout, Omegle and Facebook. These applications are platforms commonly used to chat with strangers with similar interests.
“The device’s images gallery contained hundreds of nude images of Lett. Lett shared these images hundreds of times throughout the social media platforms…The context of the majority of conversations in the social media platforms was sex interests, sex acts and arranging sexual encounters,” the affidavit alleged.
“Lett listed his sexual preferences in many chat strings. Among the preferences he listed ‘dad-son,’ ‘young,’ and ‘teen.’ In one conversation with an alleged 18-year-old male, Lett told him he does not mind if he is 18 and would still have sex with him if he was 10-years-old,” the affidavit alleged.
“On April 11, 2021, in the ‘youngboyz4all’ chat group in the Kik app, a user sent child sexual assault material to the group, including the two videos from the CyberTip. On April 18, 2021, Lett sent the same material to ‘Nun Bizz’ on Facebook Messenger, which caused his account to be deactivated and prompted the initiation of this case.
“On June 2, 2021, Lett was contacted at his residence and placed under arrest for possession and distribution of child pornography. On June 3, 2021, I contacted Lett at his jail cell. I asked if he would like to speak with me about this case. He advised he would like to speak with me to exonerate himself, but on the advice of his lawyer he will not,” the detective alleged in her affidavit.
