Mercer Island man charged with dealing child rape videos online
Published 12:15 pm Friday, May 20, 2016
A Mercer Island man was arrested Wednesday on child pornography charges, following a search of his million-dollar home on Southeast 78th Street.
Haniff Somani, 54, is accused of sharing violent child rape videos online, according to court documents filed May 16 by the King County prosecuting attorney’s office. He was charged with first-degree dealing in child pornography with “depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicity conduct.” In addition, he was charged with first-degree possession of child pornography.
Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Cecelia Gregson said Somani was “peddling in the misery of sexually abused children to satiate deviant interests and therefore has evidenced the threat he poses to community safety, most specifically minor children.”
In early April, a Seattle-based Homeland Security Investigations agent policing child pornography discovered a suspicious file exchange on the peer-to-peer network eDonkey2000 (eD2k), court documents continue. The agent later traced the IP address to Somani after cross-checking with the King County assessor’s office, state Department of Licensing and U.S. Postal Service.
The agent was on the network in an undercover capacity on April 3 when a user offered up a video showing a young girl being bound and sexually abused by a grown man, according to charging papers. The same user, later identified as Somani, shared another video showing the rape of an 8- to 10-year-old girl.
A federal magistrate issued a warrant on May 5, and the Homeland Security agent, with a Seattle police officer, searched Somani’s home Wednesday morning, May 18. According to charging documents, Seattle detectives found child rape videos on Somani’s laptop, which depicted children as young as 6.
A King County Superior Court judge declined the requested $50,000 bail amount, but ordered Somani not to have contact with any other minors except in the presence of a responsible adult. Somani has no known criminal history.
Somani was ordered to return to court June 2 for arraignment.
