Man Arrested For Possession Of Child Pornography On Nantucket
David Creed •
An island resident was arraigned in Nantucket District Court Thursday afternoon on charges of possessing and disseminating child pornography.
Miguel Diaz Castro, 24, is facing charges of disseminating photographs of sexual or intimate parts of a child and possessing child pornography stemming from an investigation that began in the fall of 2025. A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf. Castro appeared in court after a warrant was issued for his arrest on Tuesday.
During a bail hearing, Cape & Island’s assistant district attorney Samantha Dewitt requested cash bail be set at $5,000 and that Castro be ordered to stay away and have no contact with minor children under the age of 14. Dewitt said she felt cash bail was necessary given the severity of the charges, possible prison time, and revealed that Castro has a history of defaulting and not appearing in court.
Castro was represented by attorney Rob Moriarty, who requested $2,000 cash bail and called the case “highly circumstantial."
“You have a Google account shared with 14 other addresses in a house occupied by multiple different people, and nothing on any device that was seized from him,” Moriarty said. “He works as a carpenter. I would respectfully suggest, I understand it is a serious charge, but the bail be set at $2,000.”
Nantucket District Court Judge James Sullivan sided with the District Attorney’s Office and set bail at $5,000 cash, $50,000 surety, and ordered Castro stay away and have no contact with children under the age of 14. Castro was ordered to return to court January 4th, 2027, for a pretrial hearing. Moriarty said during the hearing he expected Castro to post bail today. The Nantucket District Court told the Current Castro is homeless but still living on the island.
According to the police report, in February of 2026, Nantucket Police detective Amanda Schwenk was assigned by the Massachusetts State Police’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to investigate nine Cyber Tip Line (CTR) reports dated October 18th, 2025 from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) regarding reports from Google. Schwenk is an affiliate of the state task force.
Google allegedly reported 64 files of suspected child sexual abuse material (CSAM) uploaded by an email user, and that email address was provided to law enforcement. Schwenk stated she was able to view a sampling of the files and determined they are in violation of laws regarding the dissemination and possession of child pornography and involved prepubescent females.
Upon investigation, the IP address of the uploads came back to a Hatikva Way apartment on Nantucket, and it was determined that approximately 14 other Gmail accounts were users of the device the files were associated with. One email had Castro’s name in it, while the other usernames were combinations of letters that did not spell any names, places, etc., and were believed to have been created to hide the true user's identity.
A search warrant was granted to Schwenk in February for the original email reported by Google, and approximately 128 videos of CSAM were on this account. The victims were of prepubescent ages.
A search warrant was executed at the Hatikva Way property in May, and the current occupants were identified and cooperated with the search, which yielded negative results. Schwenk said she spoke to a long-term resident who stated a room had two different males living in it last October 2025, and that this specific bedroom is “very transient and there are also new people living in it.”
“The resident stated that the two males had an incident where the police responded in October 2025 and they both moved out shortly after,” Schwenk said in her report. “Another resident stated that one of the males had a Samsung phone that folded open to a larger screen. Occupants further denied anyone (by the name associated with the reported email leading to Castro’s email) residing at the residence or knowing someone with that name.”
Officer Andrew McNeilly, who was assisting with the execution of the search warrant, recalled a previous call last October during which he specifically remembered talking to individuals in the living room of that address and two roommates – including Miguel Diaz Castro – were having “issues” and no longer wanted to reside together.
Administrative subpoenas were sent to various cellphone companies requesting subscriber information for the 15-digit International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number. The name on the account belonged to Castro’s brother.