HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A man facing federal child pornography charges was confirmed to be an electronics technician in the U.S. Navy.
Earlier this month Andrew Taylor Wood was indicted in the District Court of Guam on charges of transportation of child pornography, advertising child pornography and possession of child pornography.
The indictment has few details on the nature of Wood’s charges. It alleges he advertised child pornography from Oct. 15, 2016, to March 24, 2023. The indictment states Wood transported child pornography in February 2019 and was in possession of child pornography in November 2022.
The Guam Daily Post confirmed Thursday that Wood is a member of the U.S. Navy.
According to Navy spokesperson Amelia Umayam, Wood is an electronics technician, and he was previously assigned to USS Key West. He is currently assigned to Commander, Submarine Squadron 15.
Umayam also confirmed Wood remains in the Navy since being charged in federal court.
Warrant
According to federal court records, agents with Homeland Security Investigations obtained a warrant to search a Dropbox account after it was believed the account was associated with activities such as “sexual exploitation of minors” and child pornography. The Dropbox account was later discovered to be owned by Wood.
The warrant explains in July 2020 a tip was reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) for an incident of child pornography that was confirmed to have been coming from Guam and Wood’s account.
A subsequent investigation resulted in agents interviewing Wood in November 2022. Wood acknowledged using the account to “access pornography and to moving pornographic material between various computers, devices and external storage,” however, he denied viewing child pornography, the warrant stated.
Afterward, several pieces of property such as several computers, cellphones, hard drives and thumb drives, as well as other devices including an Oculus VR headset, a Kindle, a Nintendo Switch, and an Xbox 360, were seized by authorities.
In the next month, agents found Wood’s email address associated with social media accounts, community forum postings and online profiles where he solicited, traded and collected child pornography since December 2016.
The District Court of Guam building on Sept. 14 in Hagåtña.
