How a Facebook death threat against Trump sent a Kansas man to prison for child porn

A Kansas man is headed to federal prison on a child pornography conviction after what started as an investigation into a Facebook post threatening to kill former President Donald Trump.

Aaron McDowell of Salina was sentenced last week to 180 months, or 15 years, in prison after he previously pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Wichita to one count of distributing child porn.

Four additional charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. McDowell had been indicted on three charges of distributing child porn, one charge of possessing child porn and one count of threatening to harm the President of the United States.

Court records show the investigation into McDowell started with a Jan. 21, 2020, post on his Facebook page that read: “I’m going to kill Trump in the white house tomorrow at 7 PM.” When another person commented “Yo prove it,” McDowell responded with “You’ll see it on the news.”

An agent with the Wichita office of the U.S. Secret Service showed up the next day at McDowell’s home in the 2100 block of East Crawford to interview him.

The Secret Service agent wrote that McDowell told him he had been talking with his dad on the phone about government conspiracy theories when he told his dad of his plans to post the death threat on social media. McDowell said his dad warned him not to write the post “because that was serious and that he would be visited by agents of the government.”

McDowell then admitted to the Secret Service agent that he posted the threat on Facebook using his cellphone, ignoring his father’s warning.

Federal law makes it illegal to knowingly and willfully threaten the president or successors to the presidency. Violators may be fined, imprisoned for up to 5 years, or both.

Investigators and prosecutors ended up nailing McDowell for a crime with a more serious legal penalty: distribution of child pornography, with a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

During his interrogation, McDowell gave written permission to the Secret Service to search his apartment, and he later gave permission to search his phone. A Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office detective who helped search the phone found multiple photos containing child porn.

McDowell was then interrogated a second time, during which he said he had been using Chatous, DropBox, KIK and Mega to seek, receive and transfer photos and videos of child porn. He then gave written consent to search his phone and various internet accounts for child porn.

Further investigation turned up 152 files of child porn on McDowell’s phone, 33 more files in his Google Drive and 2,800 additional files on his Mega cloud storage account. Chatous contained messages about child porn, including a link he had sent that went to online storage of more child porn.

McDowell, who was 24 years old at the time he was arrested, was also ordered by a federal judge to serve 5 years of supervised release once he is out of prison and to pay a $100 special assessment. He must also pay $3,000 to eight women, or $24,000 total in restitution. His OnePlus smartphone was forfeited to the government. He was not fined.

This story was originally published May 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.