A Revere man with a history of sex offenses is back in cuffs after cops found a trove of child porn on his phone. Massachusetts State Police detectives arrested 45-year-old Kenneth Higgins, a Level 2 Sex Offender, charging him with possession of child pornography – marking his third offense. According to the State Police news release, Higgins previously served prison time for a similar conviction back in 2008 and was currently on probation.
The latest run-in with the law began with a cyber tip from Yahoo to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), detailing several picture files depicting child pornography and data linked to an IP address. Following up, the State Police Detective Unit for Suffolk County and the State Police Cyber Crime Unit were able to swiftly act to quickly arrest Higgins. The investigators, joined by a Revere Police detective, hit Higgins' apartment on Revere Beach Parkway early in the morning where after refusing to provide his phone's passcode, a Trooper retrieved its memory card with court authorization, finding the incriminating images and videos.
Higgins was taken to the State Police-Revere Barracks and subsequently to Chelsea District Court for arraignment. There, he was ordered held without bail for probation violation. In a related move, police executed a search warrant at an apartment on 165 Hawthorne St., Chelsea, the home of a friend of Higgins, where several electronic devices were taken for further examination by the Cyber Crime Unit. Charges against the resident may follow depending on the findings, alluded the news release.
The Cyber Crime Unit's analysis of the devices seized at the friend's apartment could potentially widen the scope of this case. As Higgins sits in jail, denied bail for his repeat offense, authorities are scrambling to determine if there are broader implications to the discovery of the cache of illegal material. A booking photo of Higgins from his latest arrest accompanies the State Police news release, a grim reminder of the repeated cycle of crime he seems unable to break free from.
