Monona man charged with 13 counts of possessing child porn

A former private detective from Monona was charged Tuesday with 13 counts of possessing child pornography and was downloading more when police showed up at his home on Thursday, according to a criminal complaint.
William T. Custer, 54, was using an Internet peer-to-peer network to download child pornography when police arrived with a search warrant, so he hid his laptop computer under a sofa cushion as investigators from the state Division of Criminal Investigation entered his home on Arrowhead Drive, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court.
One of the agents found the computer in the sofa, the complaint states.
Custer told the agents that he initially started using the peer-to-peer networks to download music but happened upon child pornography about two years ago and continued to download the material, visiting a network called Frostwire every day “just to see what they have,” the complaint states.
“I knew I was playing with fire,” Custer told agents, the complaint states. “I have a lot of time on my hands.”
Custer was released on a signature bond after appearing in court Tuesday.
Custer was a licensed private detective, operating Madison Investigations from 1994 to 2006 and again for about six months in 2008, according to records from the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. Records indicate he did not renew his license after it was suspended in September 2008 for violations of Wisconsin administrative laws.
State agents routinely monitor peer-to-peer networks looking for downloads of child pornography by Wisconsin residents. They use data from the networks to find the Internet account holders and to obtain search warrants for homes where child porn is believed to have been downloaded.