A Level 3 sex offender living in Centralia was arrested and charged this week for alleged possession of child sexual abuse material after Lewis County Sheriff’s Office detectives followed up on a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Christopher Rieg, 41, was booked into the Lewis County Jail at 12:20 p.m. on Feb. 11, according to jail records.
He was charged Wednesday, Feb. 12, with four counts of first-degree possession of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
The charge is a class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
Bail is set at $100,000.
Lewis County detectives received a tip from NCMEC via the Internet Crimes Against Children data portal on Jan. 8 reporting that a suspect had uploaded suspected child pornography videos to the cloud storage site Dropbox from a device in Lewis County, according to charging documents filed in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday.
NCMEC identified the suspect’s screen name and email address as belonging to Christopher Rieg, 41.
Rieg was convicted in Suwannee County Circuit Court in Florida for sexual battery and lewd and lascivious molestation in 2000 for sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl who was related to him. He was sentenced to 48 months of supervision, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
In 2006, Rieg was convicted in Columbia County Circuit Court in Florida for exposing his genitals to a 41-year-old woman he did not know. He was sentenced to 12 months of supervision for that offense.
In 2019, Rieg was convicted in Lewis County Superior Court for second-degree dealing in depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct for sending an image of child sexual abuse.
He lived in Napavine at the time of his 2019 arrest.
Rieg registered to live in the 1000 block of J Street in Centralia in September 2024. He moved to the 1000 block of South Tower Avenue in November 2024, according to previous Chronicle reporting.
According to NCMEC, the primary incident was reported to Dropbox at 6:20 p.m. on July 14, 2024, at which time Rieg’s account was closed, the video was removed and the information was forwarded to NCMEC, according to court documents.
“NCMEC conducted a check on the uploaded files and found them to contain images and videos of child pornography,” the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office states in charging documents.
“Upon reviewing the files from Dropbox, I located over 200 illicit images and videos containing child pornography,” a detective stated in a report that was quoted in the affidavit of probable cause.
The images and videos depicted girls between the ages of five and nine engaged in sexually explicit conduct, according to court documents.
When contacted by detectives at his residence, Rieg allegedly denied knowing about the illicit videos on his Dropbox account and told the detective he was notified last summer that his account had been suspended.
He allegedly denied having illicit photos or videos on his cellphone, which he was reportedly holding when detectives arrived.
Rieg reportedly gave consent for a detective to look at his phone.
While searching the phone, the detective “immediately located sexually explicit photographs which appeared to be younger females naked engaged in sexual activity,” according to charging documents.
Rieg then allegedly told the detective that “he would use his desktop computer to obtain these illicit videos and images,” according to court documents.
During an in-depth interview at the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office, Rieg allegedly said his porn habit “was really a habit; it was just something he had been watching for a long time,” according to court documents. He allegedly identified a dark website where he gets his child pornographic material and said “he uploaded a lot of videos and images from that site and has them saved on an SD card that is within his phone,” according to court documents.
Arraignment is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 20.
