FAIRMONT — A Fairmont man is facing a felony charge in Martin County.

Peter David Hennager, 58, has been charged with possession of pornography on a work computer, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

According to the complaint:

On Nov. 6, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Internet Crimes Against Children Unit received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The NCMEC operates the CyberTip Line and the Child Victim Identification Program. The programs assist law enforcement in identifying victims of child pornography and child sexual exploitation.

A special agent with the BCA reviewed the tip and accompanying information, and noted it was initiated by the company Yahoo! Inc. Representatives from Yahoo! identified what they believed to be child pornography content uploaded through the Yahoo Messenger account of a user identified as “Pete H” and gave the user’s telephone number and address.

The agent reviewed the data and noted that the identified content consisted of two photographs that were uploaded on Sept. 21. The agent confirmed that both uploaded files were done using the same IP address. Both images depicted a nude female who appeared to be 13 to 14 years of age.

On Oct. 9, the BCA unit received information from Frontier Communications in response to a subpoena confirming that the subscriber for the IP address that downloaded the images was identified as “Jetter Clean,” with an address in the 100 block of West Fourth Street in Fairmont.

On Oct. 13, the BCA unit received information from Verizon Wireless in response to a subpoena. The information confirmed that the subscriber for the telephone number provided by representatives from Yahoo! Inc., as user “Pete H” was identified as “Peter Hennager,” with an address in the 1900 block of Knollwood Drive in Fairmont.

An open source search for “Jetter Clean Advanced Drain Cleaning” in Fairmont confirmed the manager is identified as “Pete Hennager.” Based on this and other information, the special agent believed Hennager was the user reported by Yahoo! Inc.

On Nov. 13, the agent and a Fairmont police detective made contact with Hennager at his place of employment. The agent identified himself and asked Hennager if he had any thoughts on why the agent would need to speak with him. Hennager made a statement to the effect, “I’ve been on a few sites.”

Hennager stated he frequented a social media site he identified as “Chat Avenue” and a pornographic site identified as “Motherless.” Hennager said he had observed that other participants are removed from particular chat rooms by the website moderators for what he defined as “underage stuff.”

Hennager also said he had witnessed and been involved with what he described as “age play” or age-related role play. Hennager acknowledged that this type of correspondence involves one individual reporting to be a child, with the other individual reporting to be an adult.

Hennager said his online activity included viewing images of young females, but he believed the females depicted were legitimate role models. He also said he was involved in chat correspondence as previously indicated that included the uploaded images. Hennager stated some of the images were of individuals who were “quite young,” and he believed it was these specific images that caused moderators to remove the senders from the website.

Hennager said he had shared images of children with other users with whom he had communicated. He also stated he had saved child pornography images on external media to include USB flash media, after which he deletes them within a month.

The special agent executed a search warrant at Hennager’s Jetter Clean office and Hennager’s residence in Fairmont. Among the items seized were computers, cell phones and USB flash drives. The agent reviewed the data and located images that were classified as child erotica. Other images were located on a “Jetter Clean” USB flash drive that was located on Hennager’s person at the time the search warrant was executed.

The agent also located web history data that included site visits to URLs that contained various incest-related titles. The agent noted the browser activity occurred on Hennager’s home office computer. Other similar URL titles and browser activity were found on Hennager’s custom desktop computer located at his place of employment.