Former Dallas police officer pleads guilty to possessing child pornography
A former Dallas police officer pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth to possessing images of prepubescent girls engaged in sexual intercourse with adults.
Daniel Collins, 35, resigned from the Dallas Police Department earlier in the week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas said. He was a senior corporal and lives in Mansfield.
Collins pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cureton. He was charged in a criminal complaint filed in July with transportation of child pornography.
Collins is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 8.
Collins admitted in a factual resume that he signed on Monday that he accessed child pornography via his Google email account in May and June. He said images that portrayed sadistic or masochistic conduct were among the material he possessed.
A law enforcement investigation was triggered when Google flagged sexually explicit images of children that were uploaded to Collins’ Google account via the city of Dallas internet network, according to the criminal complaint.
Google reported the images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which filed a cyber tipline report with the Dallas Police Department.
In the report, Google provided an image of Collins dressed in a police uniform that was stored in his account, according to the criminal complaint.
This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 7:39 PM.
