Deputy arrested Monday on sex charges

Kenneth Malphurs, former school resource and corrections officer, is charged with lewd & lascivious on a victim younger than 12
 

By WILLIAM SNOWDEN
Editor


Former Wakulla deputy Kenneth Malphurs

A Wakulla County Deputy Sheriff was arrested on Monday on charges of lewd and lascivious molestation on a person younger than 12. The deputy, Kenneth Malphurs, was being held in jail without bond.
Malphurs, 32, had been a school resource officer at the time the victim came forward with her allegations.
Lt. Jeffrey Yarbrough, the public information officer for the sheriff’s office, said the charges had nothing to do with Malphurs work as an SRO, but once the allegations were made, Malphurs was removed from campus and allowed to work as a corrections officer in the Wakulla County Jail. After there appeared to be substance to the criminal allegations, Malphurs was placed on administrative leave at the sheriff’s office.
The allegations against Malphurs were first brought forward in April 2021 – and the heavily redacted arrest report released by WCSO shows an in-depth investigation, including into his internet searches.
 After the initial report in April 2021, Malphurs was transferred to the jail. According to the arrest report, detectives Ashley Hudson and Brett Surace met with Malphurs with a warrant to seize his cell phone. The detectives asked for any passwords on the phone, warning that the phone could be damaged by FDLE specialists bypassing any passcodes. Malphurs sighed, said he wanted to talk to his attorney, and then reportedly asked: “I guess my question is what does the phone have to do with sexual battery?”
In addition to FDLE, the detectives used Cybercheck to search Malphur’s internet use. Cybercheck is a Canadian-based intelligence gathering firm used by law enforcement to investigate surface, deep, and dark web.
It was noted in the report that Malphurs sent a screen shot of a covert child pornography terminology sheet with such terms as “hot dog” for a boy and “pasta” for a little boy; “pizza” for a girl, and “Cheese pizza” for a little girl.
There were numerous texts between Malphurs and the alleged victim that were recovered, including him questioning the victim about her motive for reporting him.
The detectives also recovered his internet search history, which besides a lot of porn searches, included “Can you change your name,” “how to stop jailbreak from iphone,” “how to prevent data removal,” “is sexual battery hard to prove,” “will drinking radiator fluid kill you,” “how to make a noose,” “influencing prosecutors not to prosecute,” “bluffing prosecutors,” and “facial lying software.”
Malphurs also did a search for the detective on the case.