LOWELL, MASS. (WHDH) - According to 7NEWS Sources, a Lowell firefighter was arrested on child sex abuse material and sex trafficking charges.
According to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, David Silva was arraigned in Wrentham District Court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to possession of child sex abuse materials, posing or exhibiting a child in the nude, and trafficking a person under 18 for sexual servitude.
According to court paperwork, the arrest came after a several-month-long investigation into the 35-year-old. Prosecutors said the Lowell firefighter asked young girls for inappropriate pictures and sent unsolicited videos of himself to them.
Investigators said he spoke with underage girls on the Snapchat app. They found “hundreds of photographs and videos of what appeared to be juvenile females performing sexual acts in bedrooms, bathrooms, school bathrooms, and school classrooms.”
Millis police say parents of a teenage girl came to them in December 2024, concerned about her inappropriate conversations with a man on snapchat. The girl told investigators the man Venmoed $50 or $100 for explicit pictures.
His Snapchat account was reported several times for being “inappropriate, violent/disturbing”.
The Norfolk DA’s office says Silva was set free on $25,000 cash bail and is ordered to stay away and have no contact with the alleged victim, witnesses, and have no unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18. He is also prohibited from using social media.
When asked about Silva’s arrest, Lowell City Manager Thomas Golden said, “This is a personnel matter that I can’t comment about at this time.”
The incident is still under investigation, and Silva is set to reappear in court on April 1.
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