Santa Rosa man attending SRJC police academy arrested on felony child porn charges

Santa Rosa police arrested a 22-year-old man, who was training in the Santa Rosa Junior College police academy and for years was a Sebastopol Police Department volunteer, on felony child pornography charges in connection with a regional investigation.

Authorities found more than 12,000 pornographic videos and images of children on computer devices seized from the Santa Rosa home of suspect Ryan Andrew Imschweiler. The police department’s informational technology team reviewed the computer hard drives to discover the graphic videos and images on Imschweiler’s devices and Wednesday charged and booked him into Sonoma County Jail. He was released later that day on $40,000 bail. His first county court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday.

Imschweiler attended SRJC and was being paid as a student employee by the college’s police department from 2015 to 2017, with the job title of cadet, SRJC spokeswoman Erin Bricker said Friday.

Former Sebastopol police chief Jeff Weaver, now running the Rohnert Park public safety department on an interim basis, said Imschweiler volunteered with the department first as a police explorer and then as a community service volunteer. In 2015, Imschweiler was honored by the Boy Scouts for his actions during a ridealong as a police explorer, after he called for backup on a police radio when the officer he was shadowing was attacked by a suspect.

“He was very, very dedicated. Never caused a problem for the organization. Very reliable. Nothing out of the ordinary ?other than good things. So we never had any issues with him,” Weaver said. “I’ve always had a great relationship with Ryan.”

Weaver said the Sebastopol Police Department runs background checks on all of its police explorers and community service volunteers and that “there were no indications at the time that he was accepted into the program that there were any problems.”

Sebastopol Police Chief James Conner on Friday agreed with Weaver’s assessment of Imschweiler and said his conduct as a volunteer had been? commendable.

“We never had any complaints or issues,” Conner said. “He was very motivated and he was very interested in community service.”

Conner said he was notified of the felony child porn charges just prior to Santa Rosa Police Department’s public release of Imschweiler’s arrest this week. Conner said he last saw Imschweiler a few weeks ago.

The investigation began when the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children unit, based in San Jose, and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children provided information to Santa Rosa police about child pornography being downloaded and uploaded at a Santa Rosa location earlier this month. The original images that started the investigation were found on one of Imschweiler’s computers, though it does not appear at this time that he knew any of the victim children, Santa Rosa police said.

Last week, detectives interviewed and served a search warrant to Imschweiler at his unincorporated Santa Rosa residence, taking with them multiple computer devices. After reviewing them and finding the thousands of child porn videos and images, they returned earlier this week to take him into custody.

Prior to his arrest, Imschweiler was paying his own way through the SRJC police academy and was not employed as a police officer by any local department, Santa Rosa Police Lt. John Cregan said Friday by email.

Bricker said the junior college has not launched an investigation to determine if Imschweiler used school computers to access child pornography. She said college officials, if requested, will cooperate with Santa Rosa police on that matter.

Staff Writer Bill Swindell contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Beale at 707-521-5205 or andrew.beale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @iambeale. Staff Writer Kevin Fixler is available at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.