Delaware County joins task force with Franklin County

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Delaware County commissioners approved an agreement with Franklin County commissioners, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force Monday morning.

The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office has received $25,000 in federal funding through a Joint Assistance Grant (JAG) from the Franklin County office of Homeland Security while Franklin County commissioners have received $47,600 in federal funding through JAG from the Ohio office of Criminal Justice Services.

“This is a great partnership we have with Franklin County where they reimburse all overtime for one of our detectives who is assigned to the ICAC, which we wholeheartedly support,” said Capt. Kevin Savage of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office.

The $72,600 grant fund allows the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, designated as the implementing agency, to reimburse the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office for any overtime accrued by one of its investigators for the task force.

“We’re able to monitor where child pornography and other things are being downloaded that stem from Delaware County,” Savage said. “We partner with Franklin County. They’re the head of the task force and we assign a detective to that task force and then we’ll prosecute here locally.”

The agreement is for one year.

In other business, commissioners unanimously approved an agreement Monday for Accurint software services, namely a database, between the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office and LexisNexis.

The newly created database is for criminal analytics, Savage told commissioners. The 36-month agreement will cost $9,700, an annual license fee, which will be invoiced in 12 monthly payments of $808.33.

“(The database) is going to do remarkable things for us,” Savage said. “You can foreshadow crime, It shows where hot spots are throughout the county (and) where we need to focus our investigative techniques and patrol operation. You can do unlimited stuff with this and we’re very excited get started with it.”

The database will hook up with other area law enforcement agencies such as Franklin County, the city of Columbus, Westerville and Dublin, Savage told commissioners.

“We’ll be able to share information on common suspects and pull their reports from individual agencies,” Savage said. “We’re proud of this agreement with LexisNexis and the technology coming into play is just excellent.”

All of Delaware County’s law enforcement agencies will have access to the database, Savage said. “The idea of Sheriff (Russell) Martin is to be able to share information, so that’s what we’re set out to do,” he said.

Accurint’s website says, “Government agencies can efficiently locate people, better detect fraud, accurately verify identity, perform in-depth due diligence and more easily visualize complex relationships using the full suite of powerful investigative tools.”

Other costs include a one-time fee for two user licenses for Automated Tactical Analysis of Crime (ATAC) workstations for $5,700 and a one-time fee of $7,500 data translation.

Commissioners also approved a one-year lease agreement for secure storage facilities for a total cost of $42,300.

Commissioners are scheduled to meet again Jan. 7 at 9:30 a.m.

Internet Crimes Against Children investigated

By Michael Rich

For The Gazette

Follow Michael Rich on Twitter @mrichdelgazette. Email: [email protected].

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