The home of a Utah man who hosts a popular YouTube channel for children was raided last week after local law enforcement officers arrested him on suspicion of trying to “have sex with children.”
by Ethan Huff
John Robert Krampf, 64, creator of “The Happy Scientist,” was reportedly found to be in possession of “thousands upon thousands” of child pornography images, which were saved on numerous hard drives found at his residence.
Krampf, along with 11 other suspects, was arrested as part of a Craigslist sting in St. George, which later revealed that he was in possession of some 20 hard drives, including one with four terabytes of space, that contained “countless images” of child pornography.
“During a forensic review of that hard drive, said investigators found ‘thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands’ of inappropriate images and videos of children,” one local news outlet reported, referring to the four-terabyte drive found at Krampf’s house.
Because so much child porn is said to have been found on Krampf’s hard drives, the case was referred to the FBI for further analysis and investigation.
“With 19 hard drives still to go, we knew we had a bigger problem,” stated Chief Barfuss, who also assists with the FBI’s child exploitation task force.
“So we decided to send everything to the FBI field office and get the U.S. Attorney’s Office involved at that point.”
Krampf’s YouTube channel, which contains a compilation of educational science videos geared towards children, currently has about 8,140 subscribers.
His most popular video has more than 3.3 million views, though he “had apparently been doing this for a long time,” Chief Barfuss indicated, referring to Krampf’s collecting of child porn.
YouTube is harboring pedophiles and we aren’t surprised
The FBI had reportedly already been honing in on Krampf prior to the local sting, which uncovered what some in the law enforcement community had apparently suspected was taking place.
Chief Barfuss stated that Krampf’s case is particularly “disturbing” because the contents of his channel are geared towards the young and vulnerable.
“We found that concerning, to say the least,” he stated.
In the federal indictment against Krampf, prosecutors allege that the man “did knowingly possess” material containing images of child pornography involving children younger than 12 years of age.
“Additionally, those images were transported in ‘interstate and foreign commerce,’” the indictment added.
Krampf was scheduled to appear before a U.S. District Court this past Monday.
Meanwhile, his YouTube channel is still active, which is hardly surprising since the Google-owned video platform revels in perversion and facilitates its spread, hence why independent platforms like Brighteon.com were created as alternatives.
If convicted of a second charge involving receipt of child pornography, Krampf faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
This charge is in addition to possession of child pornography, which carries its own penalties.
Over the years, penalties for these types of crimes have become stricter.
In 1997, the average sentence for a person convicted of a charge related to child porn was just over 20 months.
Since that time, the average has jumped nearly sixfold to 118 months in prison.
“Meanwhile, the FBI allegedly destroyed evidence on (Anthony) Weiner’s laptop that supposedly contained videos of children being abused, that were so bad that hardened FBI officers threw up,” wrote one Infowars commenter.
“One law for thee, but not for me, is clearly the U.S. Establishment’s mantra.”
“A scientific mind is most often void of spirit and conscience which often leads to degenerate behavior like pedophilia,” wrote another.
