EXCLUSIVE: Homeless man on Oregon’s Warm Springs Indian Reservation charged after Predator Poachers sting
Post allegedly admitted he had downloaded, stored and viewed child sexual abuse material.
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Post allegedly admitted he had downloaded, stored and viewed child sexual abuse material.
Federal authorities have charged a homeless man living in a shelter on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon with possession or access with intent to view child pornography after they were alerted to an investigation by a grassroots group posing as minors to bait predators.
According to the FBI affidavit obtained by The Post Millennial, Warm Springs Police responded on May 17, after members of Predator Poachers Washington said they had confronted Ezra Tobias Post, 27, over alleged online conversations with decoy accounts posing as 13-year-old girls. Post allegedly continued communicating after the accounts disclosed their purported ages and allegedly sent an explicit image.
During the confrontation, Post allegedly admitted to communicating with accounts he believed belonged to underage females. Warm Springs Police Department officers responded, and Post expressed suicidal ideations. He was transported to the Saint Charles Madras Emergency Room for evaluation and later interviewed at the Sage View Psychiatric Center in Bend, Oregon.
Police later interviewed Post after reading him his Miranda rights. The affidavit says he admitted communicating with underage females online and admitted previously viewing child sexual abuse material downloaded from Telegram.
In a subsequent interview with FBI agents and detectives from the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office on May 27, Post allegedly admitted he had downloaded and viewed Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) from X and Telegram, viewed it multiple times per week, and stored material on a laptop, an old iPhone, and USB drives. Investigators recovered those devices from a locked black plastic bin found in his shelter hut after Post consented to a search, according to the affidavit.
Post was living in the homeless shelter at the time of the incident near Autumn Avenue in Warm Springs. Shelter staff confirmed to police that occupants have no expectation of privacy in the huts, allowing searches by staff or law enforcement at any time.
A federal search warrant was executed on May 29. The FBI says an initial review of one USB drive found three videos consistent with CSAM, while other devices remained under forensic examination.
The FBI affidavit establishes probable cause for a criminal complaint and arrest warrant charging Post with knowing possession or access with intent to view child pornography. He remains in custody following his psychiatric evaluation and the discovery of the material.
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