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Jed Cohen, 74, of Dartmouth, is charged with possession of child pornography, disseminating photographs of sexual or intimate parts of a child, and paying for sexual conduct with a child under 18, the Suffolk County District Attorney said.
A judge ordered him held on a $10,000 bond. He must wear a GPS-monitoring device and remain in his home if he pays his bail.
A passenger aboard the flight from Nashville to Boston on Tuesday, July 16, alerted crew members that they'd seen Cohen exchanging the photos and having a "sickening" conversation with someone on WhatsApp, the prosecutor said.
The witness gave the crew notes from the conversation that included:
'How old a girl is’—'Answer was 4’—‘How young is she?’—'She’s five dear, she’s all you need’—'How much does it cost to (expletive) her for a night?’
They told the crew that Cohen looked at multiple photos of girls as young as toddlers to 11-year-olds before taking off.
A member of the flight crew told police they saw two images on Cohen's phone that included a clothed girl in pigtails around 10 years old and a girl who was a little older nude from the waist up, the prosecutor said.
Police asked Cohen to unlock his phone when they landed at Boston Logan Airport and found text conversations similar to those the witness had seen. They also found several photos of underage girls in sheer lingerie and a nude child.
Troopers saw a video of an underage performing sexual acts on a man to which Cohen had sent a reply message saying "I love her," the prosecutor said.
Police also found several more videos and photos of men raping underage girls and a message from Cohen asking about having a sexual encounter with a 3-year-old at his condo for a fee, authorities continued.
Cohen will return to court on Aug. 15.
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