Former Calhoun resident, Dennis C. Houchin has been arrested by the Indian River County Sheriffs Department following at tip about child pornography being on his phone.
Houchin, 64, appeared in court Tuesday and was charged with eleven counts of possession of child pornography after the IRCSO detectives responded to his home located at Vero Beach, Florida on June 23.
In a complaint received by Ridgeview News from the Florida Felony Court Records it was stated that Corporal Ooley met with the complainant who reported the child pornography being on Houchin’s cellphone. The office was informed that Dennis had these pictures in his deleted files within his photo album. The photos were said to be altered by Dennis from their original form to be pornographic in nature. Several of the photographs were of a 17 year old family member as well as another victim who was also a relative taken when the child was 15 years of age. The photos had been altered from the children having clothing on to now depicting exposed bodies.
Detective Matthew Redstone and Corporal Ooley had observed the pictures of several prepubescent females between the ages of 14 and 17, that were of a sexual nature. Also within the trash folder were several photos of females between the ages of 8 to 12 with breasts exposed, with on exposing additional nudity.
The search warrant was served on June 24th, 2024 at the Houchin residence. Post-miranda, Houchin admitted to using an android phone app to alter photographs that he had gotten from the internet. He used the app (which he could not recall the name of) to remove the clothing from the juvenile females and replace them with “boobies,” (Houchin’s wording.) Houchin denied the photographs being of anyone he knew. He also denied watching any pornography of children, but did admit to watching pornography of adult females in their thirties. Dennis stated that he later Googled the name of the android app and discovered that it was illegal. He then deleted the app and the images. During the interview Dennis stated to the officers that they should check the tablet that was in his bedroom, as he told Sergeant Jaworski he was not sure if anything was on his tablet because he was unsure if he had a “cloud” account set up on it. Detective Redstone then obtained a tablet that he located in Dennis’ bedroom and previewed the tablet after obtaining verbal consent from Houchin.
Based on Detective Redstone’s preview of the tablet he did not locate any illegal images. Houchin was taken into custody and transported to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations while a thorough review of the cell phone was completed by Detective Redstone. During a forensic review of Houchin’s cell phone, eleven images were located stored on the device.
Houchin is being held on a $275,000 bond awaiting an arraignment in September. He has been ordered to have no contact with children under the age of 18, nor is he to have contact with Susan Houchin.
