Cottage Grove Woman Indicted On Child Pornography Charges
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - Nude photos of a sleeping child led to a federal indictment for a Cottage Grove woman.
Roxanne Merrell, 35, has been charged with two counts of production of child pornography.
She was offered $100,000 to take photos of a minor "below the waste" and nude, according to the indictment.
She's accused of taking the photos while the child was sleeping.
The photographs were discovered on the computer of a North Dakotan sex offender.
Merrell's hands appeared in one photo and that she was identified as the producer and sender of the images, according to a release from the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office.
The indictment comes from an investigation conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, assisted by the Cottage Grove Police Department and the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
"HSI is committed to aggressively pursuing those individuals suspected of trading in child pornography," said Special Agent in Charge J. Michael Netherland of HSI's St. Paul department. "It is our job to do everything that we can to protect the most vulnerable members of our society."
Merrell appeared in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on Monday.