Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

An Austin couple has made their first appearance in Mower County District Court to face numerous charges of child pornography and drugs.

Jose Luis Rodriguez, 27, of Austin, has been charged with 19 felonies, 17 of which range from dissemination of child pornography to possession of pornographic work that includes minors under 13.

Meanwhile, Anna Victoria Gravina, 33, of Austin, has been charged with a total of nine felonies, eight of which are also for dissemination of child pornography and possession.

Both were also charged with felony storing meth paraphernalia in the presence of a child and Rodiguez was charged with a single felony count of fifth degree drug possession.

They are currently being held in Mower County Jail with Rodriguez being held on $250,000 bail, no conditions and Gravina being held on $150,000 bail, no conditions.

According to the court complaint, on March 1, 2022, an Austin Police Department detective received 19 Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

The tips indicated that Google had reported a user had uploaded 3,284 files including suspected child sexual abuse to a Google Drive and Photos account beginning in May of 2020.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) issued subpoenas to Google, Sprint, AT&T and Charter for information associated with the uploads, which was allegedly Jose Rodriguez.

Files discovered from the various accounts requested that were related to Rodriguez showed several images of child sexual abuse including data allegedly related to an email account of Rodriguez that included six videos and 699 images.

On Dec. 5, the detective secured a search warrant for data related to an email account belonging to Gravina. Several photos were discovered with Rodriguez, but none of them were sexual in nature. 

However, several files were also discovered from the account included files depicting child sexual abuse.

A search of Gravina’s Facebook account discovered a message thread with Rodriguez on April 27, 2022, where the two were having a conversation about their relationship.

According to the complaint, Gravina said during the conversation “I know now it’s a sort of excuse.” Later that day Gravina allegedly sent approximately 45 files including both video and images, many of them featuring illicit files of children.

On April 18 of this year, law enforcement conducted a search warrant for a residence located in the 1100 block of Oakland Avenue West in Austin where Rodriguez and Gravina were arrested.

Gravina initially denied knowing about the material, but admitted that an old email, one that the detective had searched, had allegedly been hacked and that, “they took stuff through Facebook” and accessed the “dark web.”

She then allegedly stated that in August of 2022, she gave out her personal information on Facebook and granted access to her account to someone referred to only as “them,” in the court complaint followed by her saying that “they” erased her email account and kicked her out of her Facebook account.

She allegedly told the detective that she told Facebook and Google about the hacking, but never got access back. After supposedly getting access to her Google account she said that she found pictures depicting child pornography.

However, according to the complaint, Gravina repeatedly changed her story and when asked by the detective if she shared any of the material on her phone, she replied, “I’m not sure, because all my, see all my stuff was still inked into my things.”

When asked about Rodriguez, Gravina stated that she believed that someone allegedly sent pictures from her Facebook account to Rodriguez’s account.

Gravina allegedly stated that she and Rodriguez got into a fight about the material and that Rodriguez denied sending the material and that he told her that it was not his fault that her account got hacked.

At the jail, though, Gravina requested to speak to the detective again and this time allegedly said that there were times she suspected Rodriguez was accessing the material and that he had said some “concerning” things to her.

However, the complaint also says that Gravina did not want to disclose what the defendant said.

During a search of the residence, numerous electronic devices including phones and computers were sent to the BCA for forensic examination.

The search also turned up miscellaneous drug paraphernalia in the living room and a bedroom, where two children also lived.

Both will be back in court on May 4 for an initial appearance.