Today, a man was arrested for 100 counts of child pornography in Hillsborough County. These are very serious felony charges that will score mandatory prison time under the Florida Sentencing Guidelines Scoresheet. Each picture or movie in his possession is a separate count of the Information or charging document. When arrested for one of the most serious sex offense you need a criminal defense attorney who has experience with these case and taken them to a jury verdict. Call now to get more information about the 100 counts of child pornography case I tried in Polk County.
Many sex crime lawyers may say they have experience with child pornography cases, but very few have ever tried a case. These criminal charges are difficult to defend. You need an attorney that is not afraid to try a child porn case. Call now 863-688-4606.
Florida Statute 847.001(3) defines "Child pornography" as any image depicting a minor engaged in sexual conduct. Possession of child pornography can also be punished under federal law.
“Sexual conduct” means actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, or sadomasochistic abuse; actual lewd exhibition of the genitals; actual physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if such person is a female, breast with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of either party; or any act or conduct which constitutes sexual battery or simulates that sexual battery is being or will be committed. A mother's breastfeeding of her baby does not under any circumstance constitute “sexual conduct.”
A person who commits a violation of paragraph (a) or subsection (2) which is based on materials that depict a minor engaged in any act or conduct that is harmful to minors commits a felony of the third degree punishable by up to 5 years in Florida state prison for each picture or movie.
The majority of people who get arrested for this crime are caught in possession of the images on their computer. Detectives in the sex crimes unit often monitor the peer to peer sharing networks and seek out child pornography images. If they find someone with child porn on their computer, they will request that a warrant be issued for the suspect’s internet protocol (IP) address from the internet service provider, such as Verizon or Bright House. That IP address acts like a telephone number as it is assigned to your account. Once the sex unit knows which house the computer is located, they will get a warrant from the judge to seize the computer. Many times law enforcement will wait to make an arrest because they will perform a forensic examination of the seized computer to determine how many images are on the computer before making an arrest. Individuals also get arrested for having picture of child pornography on their cell phone and get caught “sexting” or sending or receiving images of child porn. Other times, suspects are caught when they take their computer in for repair at Best Buy or Comp USA and the tech repairing the computer finds images on the computer and calls the police.
There are many defense to these charges. You can challenge the warrant. What if you were using a wi-fi connection and other people were piggybacking onto your internet service? What if the images were a result of email spam or a pop-up website? What if there are multiple users of that computer? What if its an unallocated file?
CALL NOW AND SPEAK TO AN EXPERIENCED SEX CRIMES ATTORNEY WHO HAS HANDLED AND TRIED THESE TYPES OF CASES.
THOMAS C. GRAJEK 863-688-4606
EXPERIENCE COUNTS - CALL NOW
Office - Lakeland, FL
Experienced criminal attorney handling all child pornography, "sexting", voyeurism, sexual battery, assault, lewd and lascivious, and child molestation crimes in Polk County and Florida.