Suspended Las Vegas sergeant facing new charges of possession of child sexual abuse material

Kevin Menon, who was indicted Oct. 9, was arrested Wednesday and is facing two charges of possession of visual presentation depicting sexual conduct of a person under 16 years of age, according to court records and Metro.

Police said the new charges are part of the department’s ongoing investigation into Menon.

According to his criminal complaint, the material was found on devices recovered during a search of his residence on Aug. 30 in relation to the initial charges.

Officers searching Menon’s devices found images of young girls exposed and posing in a sexual manner and, in some images, being sexually assaulted, according to a declaration of warrant and summons.

Police applied for a new search warrant, which was granted on Oct. 9, records show. Detectives proceeded to search Menon’s devices using hash values, or numeric values used to identify data.

According to Menon’s declaration of warrant, law enforcement has used hash values throughout years of investigations involving child sexual abuse material.

On a MacBook Pro, police found 18 child sexual abuse material images, 20 images determined “age difficult,” meaning the person in the photo appears underage but this is not verified, and 21 instances of “child erotica,” or images portraying children who are clothed or partially unclothed, police said.

On another device, a MacBook Air, police found 20 instances of child sexual abuse material, 27 “age difficult” images and 86 instances of child erotica.

Some of the images were found in the computer’s trash folder, and some were downloaded from a Russian website and later deleted, according to the report.

Police said in Menon’s declaration of warrant that Menon owned and operated these devices.

While hash values successfully identify some number of child sexual abuse material images, police said that a full manual review of all devices was underway.

The missed hearing

Menon was scheduled to appear for a court hearing Wednesday morning relating to his initial charges, which include oppression and battery, but never made it to the courtroom.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, the defendant is unable to appear at this time,” said Senior Judge Michael Cherry. His missed appearance was through “no real fault on him,” Cherry said, adding that “there’s no reason to say why” Menon was unable to appear.

Menon’s attorney, Dominic Gentile, said Wednesday morning that he had not seen the new charges himself and was trying to obtain them.

Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hamner, who was also present in court, declined to comment on the matter.

Menon, who has been employed with Metro since 2014, was earlier placed on leave without pay. He was previously accused of a “pattern of unlawful detentions,” according to police, and is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 6 in relation to those charges.

Police said Menon forcefully bumped into a person on a walkway between two Strip hotels, pretended to be a “suspicious person” to engage people in conversation before detaining them and shoved a fellow Metro officer, among other actions that amounted to people being unlawfully arrested.

Given the new charges leveled against Menon, police said in his declaration of warrant that they believe him to be a flight risk and “danger to himself and others,” including the officers who arrested him. Police requested his bail be set at $250,000.

Menon is scheduled to appear in court in relation to the charges of possession of child sexual abuse material on Thursday morning.

Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @estellelilym on X and @estelleatkinsonreports on Instagram.