A California pulmonologist has been jailed on a charge of possessing child pornography following an undercover FBI operation, court records say.
Dr. Khursheed Haider, 48, is being held without bail at the Sacramento County Main Jail following his arrest last week and a search of his Roseville home and Mercedes-Benz, court records say.
Haider, who made his initial appearance in Sacramento federal court last week, is scheduled to return to court Thursday for a hearing on whether he should remain in custody pending the outcome of his case.
He was arrested following an investigation that began in Honolulu of suspects believed to be trading files online that contained child sexual abuse materials, court records say.
After the arrest of a suspect in Hawaii, FBI agents there assumed that suspect’s online identity and began focusing in September on a user posting materials that included children subjected to bondage, domination, sadism and masochism, according to an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Scott A.H. Schofield.
That user was posting under the online name “kingg,” the affidavit says.
“By the end of September, agents linked ‘kingg’ to an IP address assigned to the internet connection at Haider’s home in Roseville, California,” Schofield wrote, and obtained a search warrant allowing access to his car and home.
On Nov. 20, agents followed Haider as he left his home at 6:15 a.m. and stopped at a gas station to add air to his car tires, Schofield wrote.
Agents approached Haider and obtained his phone from his Mercedes-Benz sedan, then went to his home, where Haider’s wife provided the passcode to his phone, court documents say.
On the phone, agents discovered a screenshot of a Google account with the screen name “king kingg,” court records say, as well as a video of a prepubescent boy engaged in a sex act with a man and another depicting a prepubescent girl engaged in sex acts with a boy and a man.
Haider was charged by criminal complaint with a single count of possession of child pornography, which could result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexis Klein argued in court papers for Haider to remain in custody, writing that agents retrieved more than 600 images or videos of child pornography from one of his laptops and at least 11 videos on his iPhone.
“Defendant is a pulmonologist, works at at least one hospital, and also performs video visits; he may have access to children through these aspects of his work,” Klein wrote, adding that there are four children in his home.