Kofi Anash 
A 54-year-old Burnett man was found guilty on Monday of using the dark web in order to obtain child pornography images.
Jeffrey W. Schaum entered a guilty plea to three counts of possession of child possession. Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Sciascia accepted Schaum’s plea and dismissed but read into the record seven additional charges.
According to the criminal complaint, a special agent for the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation became suspicious of Schaum’s IP address in March after learning that child pornography files were being requested from a website on the dark web.
The dark web is a term for a collection of websites that exist on an encrypted network and cannot be found by using traditional search engines.
Schaum’s IP address was identified in the Beaver Dam area. In addition, the internet provider gave investigators the subscriber’s name and address.
Schaum was questioned and allegedly told officials that he viewed pornography of women over the age of 18 and only occasionally viewed it because his wife was at home most of the time. According to the complaint, he later confirmed using the dark web to download child pornography. Schaum allegedly said he would download some files, watch them and delete them.
Schaum will be sentenced Nov. 22.
