photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Kenneth Soap is pictured at a motions hearing Wednesday, July 17, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A Douglas County judge on Wednesday denied a defendant’s motion to suppress Snapchat evidence in a case in which he is accused of sexually targeting numerous pre-teen girls at a Lawrence school.

The alleged crimes of defendant Kenneth Soap, 44, of Lawrence, came to light after a teacher in January 2023 happened to overhear four female students at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School discussing a man calling and sending them lewd messages on Snapchat.

That overheard conversation — about naked pictures and obscene solicitation to 11- and 12-year-olds — led to an investigation of Soap, which turned up even more disturbing allegations of illicit interactions with still more children, including the exchange of pornographic photos and videos for money and the man’s demands that the young girls call him “daddy,” as the Journal-World has reported.

Soap, who was arrested in August of last year, is facing two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, two counts of aggravated internet trading in child pornography, one count of aggravated human trafficking and one count of sexual extortion.

His attorney, Branden Smith, urged the court to throw out all of the Snapchat evidence, arguing, among other things, that the affidavit in support of the search warrant lacked probable cause and was overly broad — arguments that Judge Amy Hanley roundly rejected on Wednesday. She said that the affidavit contained probable cause to believe that evidence would be found of electronic solicitation of a child as well as harassment by telephone. She also said that “the teacher’s account was significant,” and she found that the four days of data requested in the search warrant to Snapchat was a “reasonable time limitation.”

One of Smith’s arguments was that the data provided by Snapchat — for the four-day period — exceeded what had been requested in the search warrant. The discrepancy arose because Snapchat used Coordinated Universal Time instead of Central Time in providing the data, resulting in law enforcement getting a few hours of data that fell outside what had been requested if Central Time had been used from the start.

Hanley acknowledged the discrepancy due to the time conversion but found that the officer had not acted in bad faith in reviewing the data.

“I believe she was acting in good faith in relying on what Snapchat sent her,” Hanley said.

Soap, who is being held on a $250,000 bond in the Douglas County Jail, now faces a preliminary hearing in the case on Oct. 22.

He has convictions in Douglas County for felony battery, misdemeanor battery and DUI. He also has a pending charge for a fourth or more DUI in Douglas County and a pending felony theft charge in Platte County, Missouri.