Friday, January 21st 2022, 4:34 pm
Oklahoma County prosecutors Friday charged a former jailer accused of having child pornography on her phone.
Emma Yandell was arrested at the end of last year while she was on duty at the Oklahoma County Detention Center.
The Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office filed one felony charge of possessing child pornography against the former detention officer. The illegal images were found on her phone during a contraband search.
Yandell was the second detention center officer arrested in a one-week span last December. Increased security measures at the jail led to random searches of employees. Jail officials said the 31-year-old mother brought her personal phone to work. A personal phone is considered contraband while on duty.
Investigators said Yandell's phone was confiscated, and she consented to a search of the phone. That was when two videos and photos were discovered of what appeared to be a nude 12 to 14-year-old girl in a bathtub.
“Oklahoma City police investigators were notified by the Oklahoma County Detention Center and responded to the jail,” Oklahoma City Police Department Sergeant Dillon Quirk said. “This was in reference to some illicit materials being found on one of the employees of the jail’s phone.”
According to an arrest affidavit, Yandell told investigators her juvenile son sent her the video and claimed she reported the video to police. However, police did not have record of a report.
Jail officials said they have a zero tolerance policy on contraband brought into the jail. Yandell was immediately fired that day.
Yandell has since bonded out of jail. Court records do not show an initial court date has been set.
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