Fergus Falls Man, 53, Charged With Two Felony Child Porn Counts

Lesley Glenn Nielsen, 53, of Fergus Falls was taken into custody March 5 and charged with two felony counts of possession of pornographic work involving minors, authorities said. Each count carries a potential penalty of up to 15 years in prison and fines up to $15,000, according to charging information filed in Otter Tail County.

Investigators described the case as a years-long, multi-agency probe that involved federal authorities and local detectives. A detective who examined devices seized during the investigation sent images and videos flagged on those devices to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for review, and received an NCMEC report on March 4 that identified over 60 files on Nielsen’s devices that contained images of real children from various locations, the report said.

Charging documents and reporting from court records additionally note the presence of multiple items of artificial intelligence and a consistent pattern of AI generated child sexual abuse material among the files recovered from Nielsen’s devices. The materials identified by NCMEC were used to support the two felony counts lodged against Nielsen on state charges.

Nielsen made his first court appearance March 6 and was released from custody on a personal recognizance bond with specific conditions. The bond bars Nielsen from having unsupervised contact with persons under age 18, prohibits access to the internet, and prohibits possession of pornographic material, court records indicate. His next scheduled appearance in Otter Tail County District Court is April 14.

The Nielsen case follows other recent prosecutions in Otter Tail County that involved possession or dissemination of explicit material. In Perham, 42-year-old Zachary Nash pleaded guilty in December 2025 to two counts of possessing child pornography and was sentenced to four months in the Otter Tail County Jail with five years of probation, after investigators acting on Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force tips and a May 2023 search warrant found 17 files on Nash’s devices. In Fergus Falls, prosecutors charged 40-year-old Joshua Caleb Corley with seven counts of Nonconsensual Dissemination of Private Sexual Images after investigators say Corley uploaded sexually explicit videos of a woman without her consent and linked the uploads to his profile; court filings in that case reflect victim statements, text messages and an apology from Corley.

Otter Tail County court records list the formal charge title as possession of pornographic work involving minors; formal charging documents and the NCMEC report have not been publicly released in full. Nielsen remains free on the conditions of his personal recognizance bond as investigators and prosecutors continue to review the materials identified by NCMEC ahead of the April 14 hearing.