Florida Man Faces Child Porn, Bestiality Material Charges
It’s common for people to look at child porn videos. It’s not as common for people to view or create bestiality materials — photos and videos involving humans having sex with animals — but investigators do find these materials from time to time and will punish offenders based on state laws.
A Gainesville man was recently for possessing child pornography and animal bestiality material — both considered abusive in nature. The 37-year-old man was arrested after an investigation that lasted nearly a year. Gainesville Police Department officers searched two electronic devices and found more than 2,600 images and videos of children being sexually abused.
The investigation started on May 23, 2024, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a cybertip from Dropbox, which is a cloud storage service. Dropbox reported user account “John Weir” for uploading child sexual abuse material. According to the cybertip, there were 163 videos uploaded to Dropbox by the man’s account between December 7, 2014, and October 1, 2015. The suspect attempted to share one of the videos nearly a decade later, on May 23, 2024.
Police officers used MaxMind, an IP tracking service, to trace two of the suspect’s login IP addresses to Verizon Wireless and Cox Communications. Both accounts were traced to an unknown user in Gainesville. In June 2024, a detective from the Gainesville Police Department issued subpoenas to Cox Communications and Verizon, as well as Yahoo, since it was the service connected to the suspect’s email account. The detective also executed a search warrant to view the contents of the suspect’s Dropbox account.
The detective received a response from Dropbox several days later. It was discovered that the man’s account contained 244 videos depicting child sexual abuse. There were 37 more videos in which the content was “age questionable.”
In July, Cox Communications provided the suspect’s residential address. Yahoo also disclosed the man’s recovery email addresses and phone numbers, as well as his full name, city, state, and ZIP code. Later in the month, Verizon responded with a phone number and address linked to the man.
In March, police officers executed a search warrant at the man’s residence. The search uncovered numerous electronic devices. There was also a child-like sex doll torso with female underwear on it.
Multiple devices contained child sexual abuse material. On one device, officers found 2,556 images and videos of child sexual abuse material. Of those, 548 involved very young children such as infants and toddlers. There were also 269 images involving objects and sex toys and 108 involving BDSM and sexual violence. The search also uncovered three images and videos of bestiality.
The second device contained at least 50 images and videos of child porn. The man was arrested and charged with 14 felony counts, including possession of child porn and animal cruelty content.
Contact a Legal Professional for Help
The internet is full of questionable content and people are often attracted to it.
Are you in trouble for viewing or downloading child porn or bestiality content? If so, seek legal help from a Florida child pornography lawyer from the Law Offices of Gilbert A. Schaffnit. We have the knowledge to effectively defend you. To schedule a consultation, call (352) 505-1799 or fill out the online form.
Source:
alligator.org/article/2025/04/gainesville-man-arrested-for-child-pornography-bestiality-content
