A former 86th District Court referee is arraigned in court today on five felony counts of possession of child pornography.
TRAVERSE CITY -- Dennis Mikko worked for the 86th District Probate Court- Family Division since 1997. He worked with child abuse and neglect cases and juvenile offender cases.
Last month, Mikko resigned from his position with the district court-family division.
This happened after sheriff officials searched his office and found child sexually explicit material in Mikko's briefcase. Grand Traverse County Prosecutor, Al Schneider says the sheriff's office got a tip from an organization that monitors the internet social-site, MySpace.
The organization saw sexually explicit messages between an adult male and a minor. That conversation was then traced to Mikko's computer.
"The investigation including looking to whether there was any evidence of any personal contact with any under age individual and we found no evidence of that," says Schneider.
"Do you know if any of these children were local?" asks 7&4 News.
"The pictures? No, it does not appear to be. It appears that they're cut out of some magazine," says Schneider.
Mikko's bond is set at $25 thousand. He is not allowed to use a computer, the internet or have contact with anyone under the age of 18. Each of the counts he's charged with is a four year felony.
