Yale man admits child exploitation and child porn charges

  (Stillwater, Okla.) — A 34-year-old Yale man avoided a jury trial this week by admitting he exploited a 6-year-old for child pornography and possessed more than 100 materials of explicit child pornography on his personal cell phone and Google drive.

    Garrett Paul Derycke, who previously lived in Cushing, pleaded guilty without an agreement with the prosecution regarding his penalty, which could be as much as life in prison.

    Derycke remains jailed without bail pending a May 21 court appearance at which he could be sentenced by Payne County Associate District Judge Michael Kulling, who ordered a background report on him after accepting his pleas last week.

    Derycke had been arrested at his Yale residence on Feb. 28, 2023, by Payne County Sheriff’s Investigator Lew Kellison after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a cyber tip from Google concerning apparent child pornography that was uploaded to a Google Photos account, an affidavit said.

    “The image metadata provided by Google suggest that the images were recently created by a cellphone and uploaded by the user, and the images were ‘newly produced’ or ‘homemade content,"” the affidavit said.

    “On 2/28/2023, Payne County Sheriff’s Office Investigators and Task Force Officers of the Oklahoma Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at Garrett Paul Derycke’s residence,” where his cellphone was located, the affidavit said. During an interview, Derycke denied taking nude pictures of a child, the affidavit said.

    According to Payne County court records, five months earlier Derycke had been placed on four and one-half years of probation for drunk driving on a revoked license in a vehicle with expired tags in Yale, plus 180 days in jail with credit for time served from his arrest in June of 2022, concurrent to his Drug Court termination cases.

    Derycke had previously been placed on probation for felony marijuana possession in 2016 and misdemeanor drug possession in 2019, court records show.