Fernley man allegedly possessed 10,000 child porn images

A Fernley man remained in jail Wednesday after being arrested last month for allegedly possessing 10,000 images of child pornography on his computer.

Ivan Bennett, 56, was arrested March 6 by Lyon County Sheriff's Department investigators in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Lyon County investigator Ron Hall said the FBI was involved in a bigger child porn investigation when it discovered Bennett's involvement in a Yahoo news group in which members exchange child porn.

"We waited so long to release any information because we wanted to be sure no one else in the area was involved," Hall said.

He described the images as being of "children that are obviously pre-pubescent involved in sexual activity."

Bennett is being held in the Lyon County Jail on 25 charges of possession of child pornography. His bail is set at $250,000.

Hall said cases like this are more frequent because of the Internet, and anyone can become the victim of a child porn peddler.

"If you're online and are chatting with someone and they send you child porn, you can call law enforcement and something can be done," he said. "There are things we can do to find out who sent you that."

ON THE NET

To report child pornography:

www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/innocent.htm