GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — A man trusted to help people in emergencies is in jail accused of downloading and exchanging child pornography over the Internet.
Gaston County police arrested Christopher Mauldin last month. Days later, he was no longer working as a dispatcher in the 911 call center with Mecklenburg County.
Police said they received the information from the SBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as a result of a tip they received from a social network in reference to the sharing of possible images of child pornography.
According to a search warrant, Maudlin uploaded about 100 images through his Twitter account. About half were images of child porn.
Police said after they knocked on his door, Mauldin helped them find more child porn on his computer.
Detectives said there is no record of him using Charlotte's Medic's equipment to exchange the images.
Mauldin's voice was the first sound heard by many people calling for help in emergency medical situations in Mecklenburg County.
Officers said when he returned to his home near Dallas, however, he went online looking for child porn, uploading images of children as young as 4 years old engaged in lewd acts.
His neighbors were stunned.
They said Mauldin and the man he stayed with always kept to themselves.
No one answered the door at Mauldin's home on Tuesday.
Police said the pictures were encoded with data that alerted Twitter security officials.
Twitter employees alerted the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the SBI.
They confirmed the images were sent from Mauldin's Twitter logon and they originated from his house.
The SBI contacted the Gaston County Police Department.
They said Mauldin was cooperative and told them how to find additional images of child porn.
Channel 9 asked why Mauldin helped police.
"I don't know unless he had a sense of conscience and wanted to give it up," said police Sgt. Steve Dover.
They arrested him and seized his computer and digital equipment.
"It's disappointing to see someone with the public trust that does something like that," Dover said.
Seven days later, Mauldin's more than seven years of service with Medic ended.
Medic would not say Mauldin was fired or resigned.
They said they have security in place to make sure their computers are not misused.
Mauldin was charged with 11 counts of second-degree exploitation of a minor. He was arrested and received a $250,000 secured bond.
Police: Former Medic employee accused of downloading, exchanging child porn
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