Authorities arrested 42 people across Riverside County who are suspected of distributing child pornography, including men from Palm Springs and Bermuda Dunes.
Multiple agencies, led by the county’s child exploitation team, identified more than 500 suspected distributors of “child sexual abuse material,” the term now often used for what’s traditionally known as child pornography, the Riverside County District Attorney’s office said in a press release.
The investigation led to 46 residential search warrants and 42 arrests. Suspects arrested included Daniel Malcolm, 46, of Bermuda Dunes and Dustin Jenks, 56, of Palm Springs. The DA’s office did not further detail the allegations against Malcolm or Jenks.
The DA’s office said the operation “focused on high-risk offenders and dismantling online exploitation networks” in the area from March 2025 to March 2026. High-risk offenders include people who work with children, are in positions of public trust, have prior sex offenses or are under criminal justice supervision.
There were 14 arrested that the DA’s office said were high-risk offenders — someone with a $2 million arrest warrant for child sexual assault, a child psychologist, a naturopathic doctor, a retired law enforcement employee, a California prison information technology employee, a local government planning director, a Southern California hospital chief technology officer, a notary public, a United States Postal Service employee, two corporate vice presidents and three registered sex offenders.
It published a list of the people arrested in the operation but did not specify which 14 were the high-risk offenders and what their positions were. Their names are listed below:
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs man among dozens arrested in child pornography probe
Reporting by Ani Gasparyan, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
