50-year-old San Francisco man arrested on child porn charges

A 50-year-old man has been arrested in San Francisco's Outer Sunset neighborhood on suspicion of production, possession and distribution of child pornography as well as secretly taking lewd photographs of women in public places, police said Wednesday.

The San Francisco Police Department's Internet Crimes Against Children Unit conducted an investigation into the online actions of Duane Ackerman that led them to secure a search warrant for a residence in the 1200 block of 46th Avenue, near Golden Gate Park.

At about 1 p.m. last Thursday, San Francisco police officers, special agents from the Department of Homeland Security Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed the search warrant and detained Ackerman outside the residence, police said.

Police said Ackerman is a professional photographer, but didn't say where he was employed.

During the search of the property, investigators located laptops, desktops, and thumb-drives containing thousands of child pornography videos and images depicting children engaged in sexual acts with adults, police said.

Officers found over 600 files of child pornography at the residence, police said.

Investigators also found hundreds of videos depicting Ackerman using hidden cameras to film up-skirt videos of unsuspecting women that appear to have been filmed in San Francisco's Pier 39 and Japantown areas, police said. 

During the search of the residence, investigators also found homemade recording devices that could be concealed easily on clothing or shoes.

Ackerman was arrested for possession, distribution and production of child pornography as well as for use of a concealed camera to record a person for lewd purposes, police said.

The San Francisco Police Department is urging members of the public who feel they or someone they know may have been a victim of Ackerman, or anyone who may have had any suspicious contact with him, to contact the department's Special Victims Unit at (415) 558-5500.

Last week was a particularly successful enforcement week for the FBI, who worked in partnership with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on Operation Cross Country, which focused on finding underage victims of prostitution.

The enforcement, which was part of the FBI's Innocence Lost National Initiative, led to the recovery of 149 sexually exploited children and the arrests of more than 150 pimps and other individuals nationwide, according to the FBI.

Operations in the Fairfield, Fresno, and Sacramento areas resulted in the recovery of five juveniles and the arrest of seven alleged pimps, according to the FBI.