A master sergeant in the Massachusetts Air National Guard has been indicted for possessing hundreds of images and videos of child pornography, including some that involved infants, and distributing more than 70 videos over the Internet, federal officials said Thursday.
Nicholas J. Wells, 43, who had been stationed in Sandwich, has been in jail since his initial appearance in federal court in Boston on Oct. 24 when he agreed to voluntary detainment pending trial.
A US District Court grand jury in Boston handed up the indictment on Thursday, according to acting US Attorney Joshua S. Levy’s office.
Wells is assigned to the 102nd Security Forces, part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Sandwich, according to federal court records.
The FBI focused on Wells after an agent with its Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in Jacksonville, Fla., allegedly discovered an account on the Kik messaging service for a Massachusetts man. The man was sharing photos and videos of child sexual abuse materials with other users, according to an FBI affidavit.
Agents tracked the Internet address of the Kik user to Wells’s home in Sandwich, according to the affidavit. In March, agents obtained a search warrant for his cellphone and residence and allegedly recovered 312 photos and 109 videos of alleged child sexual abuse material, court records show.
In April, agents obtained a search warrant for Wells’s Kik account and found 70 videos of child sexual abuse material that he had allegedly collected online and shared, records show.
Wells faces up to 20 years in prison for possessing child pornography and a maximum of 20 years for distribution of child pornography.
Wells was ordered off the Cape Cod base and his security clearance was revoked on March 5 after the FBI searched his home and cellphone, according to court records and the Massachusetts National Guard.
Wells joined the Air Force in November 1988 and enlisted in the Air Force National Guard in 2021. A security specialist, he was not deployed during his National Guard service, records show.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.