Feds Raid NASA Office In Porn Probe

(CBS)  Federal agents raided a NASA office in Washington on Wednesday during a child pornography probe, accusing an agency executive of viewing and trading illicit images and videos from his home and work computers, according to a court affidavit obtained by an investigative Web site.

Agents seized a laptop, a hard drive and other materials from the office of NASA program executive James Robinson, The Smoking Gun reports.

Robinson, 42, was contacted last year by undercover postal agents after an online operation pointed to Robinson as a purveyor of illegal images. According to The Smoking Gun, he wrote to undercover agents citing his pornography desires as "probably priority right now would be boy-on-boy or boy-with-Man, and girl-on-girl. But really, anything is of interest."

Using the alias "Jim Saron," Robinson allegedly responded to six undercover agents' inquiries about trading digital child pornography files, according to the search warrant affidavit by Special Agent Paul R. Danley.

In some of the e-mail exchanges that Danley details in the court document, Robinson (aka "Saron") writes that he obtained his illegal files through popular download program Kazaa or various usergroups online.

To locate Robinson through his alias, agents contacted Yahoo, but it is unclear whether the company gave information that led to Robinson. An internal NASA search located the IP address from which nude photos of children had been viewed. It pointed Robinson, court documents show.

Danley also writes that Robinson regularly used a Yahoo e-mail address with his alter-ego name and browsed a Web site cryptically called alt.chxld.mxlexter.com.

Some of the Internet trolling and illicit file sending was done from Robinson's NASA computer, Danley said. NASA, a government agency, is funded by taxpayer dollars.

Robinson, a program executive with NASA's In-Space Propulsion Technology Center, appears to have also used his personal computer for similar activity.

Although the investigation reportedly began last year, Robinson looked at the illegal electronic images as recently as January, the court records show.