Las Vegas man arrested months after Microsoft warns of child porn searches

A Las Vegas man was arrested more than a year and a half after the Microsoft Corp. alerted authorities to potential child porn on his computer.

Thomas Perusquia, 35, was arrested in August on a warrant after he was charged in August 2019 with one count of possession of visual porn of a person under 16, according to court records.

The Metropolitan Police Department received a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in February 2019 that said Microsoft believed a person was trying to use reverse image search on Bing to find child pornography, according to a Metro arrest report.

Microsoft discovered a flaw in its reverse image search in January 2019 that allowed users to upload child porn to find more illegal images, police said.

“Law enforcement have seen a documented rise in reports in which Bing was used by suspects to query and obtain illicit images depicting child pornography,” the report said.

Investigators tracked the computer searching these images to Perusquia, and upon searching his computer, they found 2,700 searches associated with child porn and nine illicit photos saved on the computer, the arrest report said.

Police were able to arrest Perusquia on an outstanding warrant after he was found at the scene of a car crash Aug. 16.

He is being held without bail and is scheduled to appear in court Monday.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.