Mastic Beach man charged after child abuse images, assault rifles found

A Mastic Beach home on Cranberry Drive became the center of a major Suffolk County police investigation after detectives said a search turned up material involving a child sexual performance, four assault rifles and seven high-capacity magazines. Brian Tilts was arrested at the house, and the case quickly moved from a cyber-crimes tip to multiple felony charges that pulled both child-exploitation and firearms laws into the same arrest.

Suffolk County police said detectives executed a search warrant at 52 Cranberry Drive at 7:06 a.m. on June 26 after acting on a tip through the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program. That network was created in 1998 in response to the spread of online child sexual abuse imagery and efforts to contact and exploit children, and it now includes 61 coordinated task forces with more than 6,200 federal, state and local law-enforcement personnel.

Investigators said the search uncovered the four assault rifles and seven high-capacity magazines inside the residence. Tilts was charged with possessing a sexual performance by a child, promoting sexual performance by a child, criminal possession of an assault weapon and criminal possession of a weapon. The weapons seizure and the child-exploitation charges turned the case into more than a simple possession arrest, with detectives treating the home as a high-priority scene once the warrant was served.

Police said Tilts was expected to be arraigned Saturday in First District Court in Central Islip. The case also reflects the specialized investigative work often used in these matters: New York State Police say their computer-crimes work includes field investigations and a computer forensic laboratory, and Suffolk County Police Department materials list a Digital Forensics Unit within the investigative structure.

No child victims were identified in the police release, and investigators did not say whether children were connected to the Mastic Beach home. With the arraignment pending, the case entered the court system in its earliest stage, and the charging papers will likely determine how prosecutors present the mix of child-exploitation allegations and assault-weapon possession in Suffolk County court.