Maricopa Police Department on Thursday arrested Benjamin Edward Grove, 24, on child sex exploitation charges after a monthslong investigation involving several agencies.
Local police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Sept. 24 that Phoenix Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit discovered Grove’s IP address was used to upload seven videos including child sexual assault material on his Samsung Galaxy S23 smartphone.
Through a series of subpoenas and search warrants, investigators identified Grove and connected him to an account on Kik, a freeware messaging mobile app that has a “huge child exploitation problem,” according to the Department of Defense.
In data recovered from that account, police found child porn and photos of Grove.
Officers arrested Grove near his Cobblestone Farms home on Celtic Avenue, where he reportedly said he has been addicted to child porn for the last four years, and admitted to uploading illegal porn on the Kik account for a long time before being recently banned.
He reportedly told officers that he purchases the material from people in Kik group chats for anywhere between $20 to $40 a file.
Grove admitted he had more child pornography on his cell phone, and when officers checked they found more than 50 files dated November 2015 through November 2024. He said he had more material in his bedroom, “likely on his computers, tablets and flash drives,” according to the police report.
Officers booked Grove into the Pinal County jail. His case has been moved out of Western Pinal Justice Court and presumably into Pinal County Superior Court, but no other information about the case has yet been filed.
He faces more than seven years in prison if convicted.
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