Survivor star Skupin headed to trial on child porn, Ponzi scheme charges
A former reality TV star is heading to trial on charges of racketeering and possession of child pornography.
Rob Wolchek broke the story after viewers complained that Mike Skupin stole their money in a Ponzi scheme.
Skupin is charged with financial crimes but today was the first testimony heard on the child porn charges he's also facing.
There was not one sound bite that is appropriate for TV from Friday's testimony so we'll spare you, but the images described were disgusting.
The photographic images allegedly found on Skupin's computers are shocking and disturbing. One picture, according to a state expert, showed a young girl and a man engaged in a sex act.
"And it appears she is crying," said the investigator.
That investigator, who the court asked us not to show on television because he does undercover police work, also described a number of other pictures of young girls engaged in a variety of sex acts with older men.
He also found a disturbing Google search.
"It was a search for can a 7-year-old have sex," the investigator said.
Skupin's attorney Steven Lynch argued that anyone could have used that computer - and the expert agreed that he could not tell who was looking at the pictures. All he could say, was that someone was.
Skupin is charged with several counts of possession of child porn allegedly stumbled upon after investigators were searching for evidence of a Ponzi scheme he is accused of running.
In 2013 Wolchek did a Hall of Shame investigation on the former Survivor star after people said that his "Pay it Forward" investment program was a fraud.
After the story aired, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office seized Skupin's property.
On Friday the prosecutor also brought Skupin's bank records to court and all the bank records were personal accounts belonging to Skupin. There were no records in the name of his Pay It Forward business.
The prosecutor used those records to show that Skupin used all the money he collected for his investment scheme to pay his personal bills.
Judge Kelley Kostin agreed with prosecutors that there was enough evidence to send Skupin to circuit court for trial.
Skupin will go to trial on:
Six counts of possessing child sexually abusive material, which are four year felonies.
Five counts of larceny by conversion which are five year felonies.
One count of conducting a criminal enterprise which is a 20-year felony.
Skupin is not in jail, he is out on a $300,000 bond.