A high school senior, just month's away from graduation is now facing prison time.
"The closer they are to being an adult and the more serious the offense, the more likely it is that they will be treated as an adult," explained legal analyst Avi Berk.
17-year-old Brandon Zittlow turns 18 next week. He's facing 10 charges of "Possession of Child Pornography," allegedly viewing images of girls between 16 and 10 years old.
According to the criminal complaint officers were originally notified about the suspected illegal behavior from Dropbox, which is an online file storage site. The company contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the stored images.
Zittlow had allegedly been storing pictures and videos to a Dropbox account.
"Your device and your data is being housed by a third party, hence not you, so therefore it's been given up," said Computer technician, Dan Conzemius.
According to police Zittlow later traded those images on several anonymous social messaging apps including Kik and Omegle.
"It's really a platform that has been used by pedophiles and other child exploiters over the last four years," said Conzemius.
According to the criminal complaint when police questioned Zittlow on how often he watched child porn he said quote: "He has an obsession with it and that he was 12 years old when he started watching pornography."
If convicted Zittlow could face a maximum sentence of 35 years behind bars.
Zittlow's next court appearance is scheduled for January 12.
