A 30-year-old Waipahu man made his initial appearance in federal court Wednesday after he was caught by FBI agents Aug. 30 while allegedly producing child pornography with a 4-year-old female relative.
In August the FBI Honolulu Division was assigned a CyberTip about Jefrey Balogo from the Attorney General
of Hawaii Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, shared with the state by the custodian of records for the social networking site Snapchat, according to a federal criminal complaint filed
Monday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren M. Nakamura is prosecuting the case. Balogo’s
attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Jacquelyn T. Esser, declined comment.
Balogo is scheduled for a detention hearing on Monday and a preliminary hearing Sept. 18.
“The FBI has an obligation to protect the integrity of the judicial process while it is ongoing,” read a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser from the FBI’s Honolulu
Division. “This involves ensuring both the government’s ability to conduct a successful prosecution as well as protecting the rights of people who are innocent unless proven guilty.”
Federal agents used a phone number allegedly belonging to Balogo to check public records and found PayPal and Whats App accounts allegedly featuring
Balogo’s picture.
Balogo started using the Snapchat account in October 2020.
Global Positioning System data helped agents locate Balogo’s phone at an apartment complex in Waipahu on Leowahine Street.
According to an affidavit authored by an FBI agent, a review of Balogo’s Snapchat account revealed about a “one second video of a minor female, approximately 4-6 years old,” grabbing an aroused adult male’s genitals.
“The minor female is laying on the male’s lower half of his body” and appears as if she is going to perform oral sex “on this unidentified male.”
“The minor female appears to be wearing a light blue t-shirt and the unidentified male appears to have shorts or boxers on with a striped black and white waist band,” wrote the FBI agent.
Further searches of Balogo’s phone number revealed it was reassigned to a new user in 2021. Law enforcement and Department of State checks revealed Balogo knew “Person-1,” who has a minor daughter, referred to in federal court documents as “MV-1.”
The FBI agent saw a photo on Person-1’s Facebook page that allegedly matched the girl the agent saw in Balogo’s Snapchat account.
Federal agents found that Balogo lived in the same apartment complex where his minor victim lived with her grandmother. State Child Welfare Services linked the phone number shared by Snapchat to the grandmother’s phone.
CWS also told the FBI that Balogo is related to the girl he allegedly molested.
On Aug. 30 an FBI Special Weapons and Tactics team “encountered a resident of the apartment” and asked whether Balogo was in the apartment.
“The resident stated Balogo and MV1 were in the back room of the apartment. The room Balogo and MV1 were in was locked and therefore SWAT breached the door,” the FBI agent wrote. “Balogo was on the bottom bunk of the bunk beds with his boxers halfway down his thighs with MV1 laying beside him.”
The search team entered and immediately “observed the room was the same of that in the Snapchat video.”
The search identified the T-shirt MV1 was wearing in the Snapchat video, and Balogo was wearing the same boxers from the Snapchat video.
Two adults living in the apartment told FBI agents that Balogo allegedly shared a room with the girl, slept in the same bed and showered with her.
During an interview, Balogo allegedly admitted to
recording the video and sending it to another person. He said the girl performed oral sex for him at least four times and that he had “complicated feelings” for her, according to the affidavit.
Balogo allegedly admitted the girl performed a sex act for him prior to the FBI entering his apartment and while she was watching TV.
