Crime & Safety

Former U.S. Senate Aide Facing Child Porn Charges Found Dead at Md. Home

Carroll County Sheriff's officials say former U.S. Senate staffer Jesse Ryan Loskarn was found dead at his parents' house in Sykesville in an apparent suicide.

A former top U.S. Senate aide facing charges of possessing child pornography was found dead at his parents' house in Sykesville, according to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department.

The body of Jesse Loskarn, 35, a former chief of staff to Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, was discovered in the basement of his parents' house on Thursday, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Deputies were called to a house on Ken Mar Drive for a report of an unconscious man, believed to be deceased. Family members reported finding Loskarn unresponsive in the basement; he’d been residing with family since December, the sheriff’s department said.

The preliminary investigation indicates that Loskarn may have taken his own life, and his body has since been taken to the State Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy, authorities said in a news release.

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Loskarn was arrested last month on suspicion of possessing and attempting to distribute child pornography, the Sun said. He had faced a total maximum of 30 years in prison if convicted on two charges.

Alexander fired Loskarn following his arrest.

Court documents said a computer hard drive seized at Loskarn's home in Washington, D.C., contained footage of a girl being molested, along with hundreds of videos of underage boys engaging in sexually explicit conduct, the newspaper says.


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