A 30-year-old Berkeley man was charged Monday with felony sex crimes against children after Berkeley detectives arrested him at his home Friday night, according to police and court papers.
The Alameda County district attorney’s office charged David Daniel Peat with two felonies: using a minor for sex acts and distributing child pornography. Authorities say both crimes happened on an ongoing basis from Jan. 1, 2018, through Friday, April 17. Peat also was charged with possession of child pornography, which is listed as a misdemeanor.
On Thursday, according to court papers, a BPD officer had been assigned to investigate a cyber tip received earlier in the week from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The tip pointed BPD to a Yahoo account that had been flagged for containing images “categorized as child pornography,” police wrote.
An officer who reviewed the account found multiple images of a prepubescent girl who was naked “and/or in compromising positions,” according to court papers. Police wrote that they used GPS data from one of the images to identify and find Peat at his West Berkeley home. They served a search warrant there Friday night.
According to court papers, Peat spoke to police and “confessed to producing child pornography” featuring the girl, who is now 14. Peat said he had been alone with the girl on numerous occasions, police wrote, and had begun making the images when she was 12.
The charge of using a minor for sex acts is defined in court documents as having coerced someone under 18 to pose or model for images involving sexual conduct.
BPD declined to release Peat’s booking photograph because the case remains under investigation.
BPD said the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the San Jose Police Department assisted in the investigation.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Peat remained in custody at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, according to booking records online. Bail was not listed. Peat was scheduled to enter a plea Friday morning at the East County Hall of Justice, Department 702, in Dublin.
