Whatcom County man charged with 14 felonies related to child rape, pornography
A Whatcom County man pleaded not guilty in Whatcom County Superior Court on Friday to 14 felonies related to child rape and possession and distribution of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Salomon Perez-Villegas, 18, was arrested in Nooksack on July 8 as part of a five-month investigation by the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. Detectives received a tip from the commander of Washington Internet Crimes Against Children that the social media platform X flagged a chat containing “apparent child pornography” and reported it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Other CyberTips linked to the same IP address in Nooksack led to police securing search warrants for other accounts like Comcast, Discord and Microsoft that are registered to that user, according to court records. The user was later determined to be Perez-Villegas.
After four months of surveillance and research, police were granted permission to search Perez-Villegas’ home. They seized his phone, which had at least 50 videos depicting child sexual abuse involving children as young as toddlers. Most of the material was sent and received on the messaging app Signal.
Perez-Villegas admitted to possessing and sending child sexual abuse material, according to court records. He said he knew it was illegal, and told police that the likelihood of officers finding child sexual abuse material on his phone was “high.”
Police also found a video allegedly created by Perez-Villegas on Snapchat that showed him raping a 4-year-old child. Perez-Villegas confessed to creating the video, and told police that he had done so more than once.
A no-contact order has been put in place between Perez-Villegas and the child. He remains in custody at Whatcom County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond. A status conference was scheduled for Aug. 6, and his trial is slated for Sept. 2.
Report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline online at report.cybertip.org or call 800-843-5678.