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A Bend man has allegedly been distributing child sex abuse material online from his home, which also functioned as the day care facility, according to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff’s office detectives discovered in March that child sex abuse material was being distributed from a computer in a Bend home, Sgt. Jason Wall, sheriff’s spokesperson, said in a news release Friday.

Thursday, authorities determined that the home was also God’s Kids Daycare, so local, state and federal agencies immediately searched the house on Burnside Avenue and arrested 61-year-old Jack Bergeron Jr., Wall said. Bergeron owns the home in which the day care operated, according to Deschutes County property records.

“It was all hands on deck to

execute right away,” Detective

Sgt. Thomas Lilienthal told The Bulletin.

Detectives have no evidence that children at the day care were victims of the alleged crimes at this time. But detectives are contacting parents and encouraging them to reach out with any questions or concerns at 541-693-6911 to be put in touch with the sheriff’s office’s Internet Crimes Against Children team.

Collecting evidence

Homeland Security Investigations, a law enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was able to connect directly to the computer implicated in the investigation in March, and the sheriff’s office’s collected two months worth of evidence, Wall said.

Bergeron was allegedly distributing and accessing material from a computer in the home day care. He allegedly used a peer-to-peer network called BitTorrent, which allows users to transfer files and communicate without requiring a separate server or server software.

“Due to the significantly increased risk of Bergeron’s access to children,” law enforcement searched Bergeron’s house immediately, Wall said.

He was charged in Deschutes County Circuit Court on Friday with 11 counts of first-degree encouraging child sex abuse, 11 counts of second-degree encouraging child sex abuse and one charge of encouraging sexual assault of an animal.

The charges allege Bergeron accessed sexually explicit videos depicting children with the intention of distributing while disregarding that the videos portrayed child abuse. He also allegedly possessed a recording of a person engaged in sexual conduct with an animal, the charges said.

Day care in Bend

God’s Kids Daycare is a registered family child care program last inspected by state officials in October, according to state records.

Bergeron and his wife operated the day care, and he assisted with care, Lilienthal said.

Bergeron’s wife, Jean Bergeron, who was reached by phone Friday, said her world has been turned upside down. She said she was working with licensing and investigators and declined to comment further.

The day care, which is licensed through the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care, had one outstanding noncompliance violation from April 2022 for an adult living in the house who hadn’t passed a background check. It’s likely that person was not Bergeron, according to the department’s child safety records.

The state agency also validated a complaint against the day care in 2021 after a provider lost their temper and yelled at a child, records indicate.

Another complaint in 2019 said a substitute at the day care “tapped a child care child’s bottom” in violation of a rule against using corporal punishment.

Bergeron was booked in the Deschutes County jail around 2:30 p.m. Thursday. He remained there on Friday without bail.