Is the moral panic over pedophiles allegedly embedded in every major institution of the West, largely fueled by the disturbing revelations in the Epstein files, overblown?
Perhaps so.
Or perhaps not, in that it seems every week, another prominent figure in the political or business world gets indicted on child sex crime charges.
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This week, it happens to be the inventor of the “Squatty Potty,” whom the government has charged with possessing and purchasing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) over a span of four and a half years, beginning in 2021 and extending up until just two weeks before the government executed its search warrant on Nov. 4, 2025.
Via United States Department of Justice (emphasis added):
An indictment was unsealed today in the District of Utah following the arrest of a Southern Utah entrepreneur, and original co-founder and creator of the “Squatty Potty,” after he was charged for receiving sexually explicit images of a child.
Robert Edwards, 50, of Ivins, Utah, was indicted by a federal grand jury on February 10, 2026. He was arrested on February 12, 2026, in Washington County, Utah. During his initial appearance on the indictment, he pleaded not guilty and was remanded to the U.S. Marshal Service by U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Kohler in St. George.
According to the allegations in court documents, beginning in March 2021, and continuing through November 2025, in the District of Utah, and elsewhere, Edwards knowingly received multiple images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). In March 2021, an undercover FBI agent assumed the identity of an online profile account and joined a group chat used to trade child sexual abuse material. The online meeting room was viewing a collection of child sexual abuse material videos, which were being streamed on the main screen. Participants in the meeting were visible, including one user later identified as Edwards.
As alleged in court documents, the investigation continued and in May 2025, FBI agents learned that Edwards was suspected of purchasing additional child sexual abuse material via his PayPal account, which flagged four transactions involving Edwards’ account as possibly related to CSAM. On November 4, 2025, law enforcement executed a search warrant on Edwards’s person and residence. Agents seized a cell phone from his vehicle, which contained multiple videos and images of child sexual abuse material, some of which downloaded onto the cell phone just two weeks before the search warrant was executed. At Edwards’s residence, law enforcement seized additional devices and found additional child sexual abuse material files.
Edwards is charged with receipt of child pornography. His detention hearing is scheduled for March 2, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. in courtroom 2B at the courthouse located at 206 West Tabernacle Street, St. George, Utah 84470.
Consumers of media might recall the notoriously awkward and off-putting Squatty Potty advertisement, which, seen in light of current events, comes off as perhaps a bit more spine-chilling than it might have previously.
Who could have ever guessed the guy who made an ad in which an anthropomorphic unicorn poops ice cream into children's mouths would turn out to be a PDF file? pic.twitter.com/rGpemZuYfY
— Ben Bartee (@BenBartee) February 27, 2026
In separate but equal news, which received markedly less fanfare than it arguably deserved, authorities in November of last year nabbed the glass ceiling-busting “first transgender person elected to the state legislature” in New Hampshire on charges that he used his girlfriend to procure pornographic images of toddlers in the daycare where she worked for his personal gratification.
Related: 'Transage': Adults Who Sexually Identify as Toddlers
Via The Boston Globe (emphasis added):
A former New Hampshire state lawmaker and her one-time romantic partner have pleaded guilty to taking and exchanging explicit images of children at a Massachusetts daycare in 2023, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Stacie Marie Laughton, 41, a former New Hampshire state representative from Nashua, N.H., was first arrested in July 2023 after investigators found she had received explicit images of children from her former partner, 40-year-old Lindsay Groves of Hudson, N.H.
Groves took the photos of nude three- to five-year-olds at Creative Minds Early Learning Center in Tyngsborough, where she worked from May 2022 until her own arrest in June 2023…
Laughton, a Democrat, was first elected to the New Hampshire House in 2012 and was believed to be the first transgender person elected to the state legislature.
All of which is to say: I’m not so sure the pedophilia hysteria is overblown; there seem to be quite a lot of them in high places.
