Indiana State Police Detective Kevin Getz, a former journalism student of Interpersonal Divide author Michael Bugeja, will visit classes at Iowa State University to discuss his role in the 2015 arrest of Subway pitchman Jared Fogle on child pornography charges.

Indiana State Police Detective Kevin Getz will present a case study to Iowa State students in Media Ethics and in Technology and Social Change, exploring investigative methods and forensic analysis in the arrest of former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle and former Jared Foundation Executive Director Russell Taylor.

Getz will discuss details of the arrest, including how he and other authorities prevented additional crimes that led to the rescue of 14 children.

In 2014, Getz was contacted by a woman whom Taylor had befriended, sharing text messages with her containing disturbing sexual content. The woman decided to contact authorities when Taylor asked if he could send her child pornography.

Based on those messages, Getz and other authorities arrested Taylor who was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

That arrest eventually led Getz and authorities to Fogle, sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges associated with child pornography and sexual conduct involving minors.

Interpersonal Divide contains sections about digital technology and crimes against children. Here’s an excerpt:

Since the 1990s, Internet has been associated with the wide-spread distribution of child pornography. At the National Strategy Conference on Combating Child Exploitation, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., spoke about the explosion of child pornography crimes because of Internet distribution through online communities and networks. Holder noted that the Internet “provides ground for individuals to create, access, and share child sexual abuse images worldwide at the click of a button,” with images “readily available through virtually every Internet technology including websites, email, instant messaging/ICQ, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), newsgroups, bulletin boards, peer-to-peer networks, and social networking sites.”[i] Increasingly, however, tweens, teens and young adults are contributing to the exploitation by sexting each other, sharing nudity through message, photo, email or social network.  … The more students learn about technology, the more they will use it responsibly. The more distracted they are, the greater the risk.
[i] Eric Holder Jr., “Child Pornography,” National Strategy Conference on Combating Child Exploitation in San Jose, California, May 19, 2011; https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/child-pornography

Detective Getz will discuss how text messages and other digital content led to arrests in the Fogle case.

Getz is a 1990 graduate of Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism. He joined the Indiana State Police in 1993. He also served in the Criminal Investigation Division before his current assignment with the Indiana Crimes Against Children Unit. Getz and his wife Deborah have three children, Elizabeth, Thomas and Katie.

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