Man charged with looking at child porn

A Havre man has been accused of possessing child pornography on computers he used at home and at work.

Leslie Jon Claassen, 43, was charged this morning in Hill County Justice Court with sexual abuse of children. According to the criminal complaint, between December of 2002 and September 2003, Claassen downloaded dozens of pornographic or sexually suggestive images of young girls.

Havre police began investigating Claassen in September after a family member called the FBI and reported that she had found child pornography on a home computer, according to the complaint. The woman told police she became suspicious because Claassen would immediately exit the screen whenever she entered the room, the complaint said.

The woman said she caught glimpses of what appeared to be pornography during those times, according to the complaint. The woman said she called the FBI after accessing Claassen's Internet account and discovered files of pornographic images that appeared to be of underage girls, the complaint said. The woman gave a police investigator several pages of images she had printed, the document said.

She signed a consent form allowing police to seize the computer as evidence. She told police that Claassen had access to a computer at work, and he often stayed there after-hours when no one else was around, the complaint said.

On Sept. 23, police obtained a search warrant for the computer at the auto repair shop where Claassen worked. That computer and the one from Claassen's home were sent to an investigator at the state Department of Justice for analysis. The investigator found pornographic images of young girls on both computers, the complaint said.

Authorities sent the images to a physician in Great Falls, who determined that some of the images included children who were under the age of 18, according to the complaint.