TERRELL, Texas — Search warrant affidavits obtained by inForney.com detail child pornography charges against a prominent Terrell man and Sunnyvale business owner who was arrested earlier this month.
TERRELL, Texas — Search warrant affidavits obtained by inForney.com detail child pornography charges against a prominent Terrell man and Sunnyvale business owner who was arrested earlier this month.
On October 13, 2023, the Terrell Police Department arrested 76-year-old Frank Finan after executing a search warrant at his residence on Grace Lane in Terrell.
Finan, who is a prominent Terrell resident and the founder and CEO of Accura Systems Inc. in Sunnyvale, was charged with possession with intent to promote child pornography.
Investigators had received a cybertip from the North Texas Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a user within the City of Terrell had uploaded an image consistent with child pornography.
Specifically, according to the warrant, Facebook sent a tip on September 12, 2023, identifying a user, namely Frank Finan, as having uploaded an image consistent with child pornography and identified the specific Facebook usernames, profile URLs, date of birth, phone number, and the Facebook User ID number associated with the account.
Facebook reported that the user had sent two media files via Facebook Messenger. One of the media files was that of the Facebook user's profile picture and the other was a video file depicting a sexual act between an adult male and a prepubescent female.
In their report, Facebook included an IP address, which the Dallas Police Department's Internet Crimes Against Children Unit geo-located to the Terrell, Texas, area.
The cybertip was forwarded to the Terrell Police Department which conducted a trace of the IP address, determining it to be related to an AT&T account related to the same phone number provided by Facebook in their original cybertip.
Additionally, through a subpoena of records, Terrell investigators determined the subscriber account details related to the phone number were that of Finan — providing a Terrell address on Grace Lane and registration details to Finan's business address in Sunnyvale as well as his business email address, which matches the domain used by Accura Systems.
Terrell investigators then used a search of the Case Logging, Enforcement & Activity Reporting (CLEAR) and Texas Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (TLETS) databases to additionally confirm the resident of the Grace Lane address to be Frank Finan, with the same job related details at Acura Systems, and Accura Systems email address.
Investigators who surveilled the residence on Grace Lane observed a vehicle registered to Finan as well as two other vehicle registered to Terrell residents — one of which, according to additional Texas Department of Public Safety and DMV records obtained by inForney.com, is registered to a sex offender.
In addition to the Facebook child pornography video evidence, investigators say additional "evidence of child pornography was discovered during the search of the residence and Frank Finan."
According to the return of the search warrant, obtained by inForney.com, investigators seized a number of storage devices, computers, and electronic devices, among other things — a GE portable recorder cassette player, black iPhone, grey iPod, blue iPhone, an Apple iMac computer, an external storage device, a Mac Mini computer, an iPad, an HP laptop, a brown wooden box with film negatives, a brown wooden box with alleged marijuana and drug paraphernalia, two pipes and one medication bottle with alleged marijuana, 34 CDs from a bedroom, Vitro memo book, folder with miscellaneous photographs of children, a photograph of a nude child, another Apple iPod, and a digital MP3 player.
Finan was arrested during the execution of the search warrant at 6:23 a.m. on October 12, 2023, and held at the Terrell Municipal Jail. He was then transferred and booked into the Kaufman County Jail just after midnight on October 14, 2023, and released just before 1:30 p.m. that same day after posting a $50,000 bond.
"Frank Finan has been a stalwart member of the Terrell community for over 40 years," Finan's defense attorney Rick Harrison told inForney.com. "He is a successful business owner who has generously donated to causes, organizations, and individuals quietly with no fanfare. This investigation does not involve promotion or distribution of child pornography."
Possession of child pornography is a third-degree felony with a possible punishment range of 2-10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Conviction of this offenses requires the defendant to register as a sex offender.
