A North Carolina man accused of having child pornography when he was taken into custody in Boulder on out-of-state warrants has taken a plea deal in his case.
Kellen David Steckler, 22, pleaded guilty in Boulder District Court on Tuesday to a felony count of violating conditions of bond.
Attorneys said Steckler will serve five years of sex offender intensive supervised probation, though the court could opt to also impose an additional punitive sanction.
Prosecutors will dismiss the original five counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
Steckler has pleaded guilty in a North Carolina case and will serve probation on that case in Boulder County and at the same time as his Boulder County sentence.
He will have to register as a sex offender and will not be allowed to have contact with anyone under the age of 18 unless approved by probation.
Steckler, who remains free on bond, is set for a sentencing hearing on May 13 after a presentence investigation and psycho-sexual evaluation.
Boulder police, while working with the U.S. Marshals Service, first arrested Steckler in August 2020 after authorities discovered he had ties to Boulder. Steckler had warrants out of North Carolina for suspicion of indecent liberties with a child, soliciting a child by computer and disseminating obscenity to a minor under the age of 13.
After Steckler was taken into custody, Boulder detectives executed several search warrants for his electronic devices.
The release said detectives from the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office assigned to the Boulder County Computer Forensics Lab executed a search warrant on several phones and a computer that Steckler had in his possession.
During analysis of the devices, detectives located pictures and video files in the gallery of the device that were identified as child pornography.
