A 45-year-old registered sex offender was ordered held without bail Thursday after he allegedly admitted to collecting child pornography because of “an addiction” he has to feed to avoid abusing children.
Joshua Kapunahele Willing pleaded guilty to three state counts of second-
degree sexual assault and two counts of third-degree sexual assault in 2018 after he confessed to sexually
assaulting a girl for four years starting when she was 7 years old.
Willing has black hair and brown eyes, is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds, according to the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center’s sex offender search site. There were 690 registered sex offenders living on Oahu as of Monday, according to the registry.
Willing now faces federal charges of receipt and
possession of child
pornography.
On Thursday, U.S.
Magistrate Judge Rom A. Trader granted the U.S. Department of Justice’s motion to detain Willing without bail before trial.
“Based on the government’s motion, the arguments of counsel, the bail report, and the criminal complaint, the Court makes the above findings and finds further that defendant has multiple prior felony convictions for sexual assault against a minor, defendant is a registered sex offender, and defendant told agents that viewing child pornography is ‘an addiction’ he must feed to avoid abusing children,” wrote Trader in his order
of detention pending trial. “The Court notes further that defendant submitted to detention.”
A detention hearing is set for April 18 in Trader’s court. Willing is in custody at the Federal Detention Center, Honolulu.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig S. Nolan is prosecuting the case.
An attorney with the federal public defender’s office who is representing Willing did not immediately respond to Honolulu Star-
Advertiser requests for comment.
Federal child pornography penalties range from
10 years up to life in prison depending on the defendant’s record and other circumstances, according to federal prosecutors.
On April 3, Willing allegedly told agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that from August until January he downloaded hours of child pornography, according to a nine-page criminal complaint.
Willing downloaded at least three separate child pornography video compilations, according to evidence extracted by FBI agents from files shared
on peer-to-peer networks.
The complaint details the semiprofessionally produced packages, including a nearly three-minute trailer that “shows a compilation of dozens of children ranging in ages approximately 4-14, both male and female, engaged in various sexual acts,” according to federal court records.
The video Willing downloaded showed adult women and men raping the children.
Willing allegedly admitted to FBI agents that he knows child pornography is illegal, but he downloads and watches child pornography on his mobile phone.
When asked by agents what he searched for in order to download child pornography, Willing said that “he did not want to answer because he was not proud of it.”
