A popular blog site said Tuesday that it will finally hand over crucial information in a case that involves nude photos of underage Twinsburg High School girls. The news came more than a month after police said they requested that information through a subpoena and search warrant.
"If it wasn't for the time that Tumblr had taken to get back to us, this case would have been done within the same week," said Sgt. Mark Kreiger of Twinsburg police.
Kreiger added that an arrest would have been made a month ago. But he said Tumblr, where the photos were posted, has stonewalled them. That's despite a subpoena and a search warrant served to the company.
"The longer this case is out, the longer the unknown defendants know about this case," he added. "They could get rid of a lot of evidence that we're looking for."
NewsChannel 5 reached out to Tumblr immediately when the case became public nearly a month ago. This was their response on Feb. 8:
"Tumblr has cooperated and communicated with the parties involved in this issue in accordance to our guidelines We terminated the account in question when it was reported to us, in accordance with our guidelines.
Further, our procedure regarding inappropriate content involving minors is as follows:
- We remove or prevent upload of such content immediately upon detection, and report instances of child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
- Our team also has a successful history of working with state and federal law enforcement authorities when we receive a subpoena or search warrant in regards to an investigation of this nature
- Users are also encouraged to report harmful behavior to tumblr.com/abuse"
"This is highly unusual for the time that it's taking to get the information back especially with the type of case that it is," Kreiger said.
But as soon as NewsChannel 5 picked up this story again, Tumblr sent this updated statement to our newsroom:
"I just checked in with our Trust and Safety team and confirmed that the requested information is on its way to the authorities in question."
Twinsburg police confirmed that Tumblr said they are sending over the requested information. Police also said they have a person of interest in the case--an underage student at Twinsburg High School. If charged, he could face felony counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor for each victim.
There are 17 victims in the case. All of them have been identified, according to police. Tumblr removed the blog page, titled "Twinsburg Nudez," the day police discovered it.
